TOKYO, Mar 17, 2011 (IPS) - For the past three days Hiroko Oogusa, 62 - following orders from the local authorities - has remained in her tightly shuttered home located 40 kilometres from the badly damaged Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima.

"The local town council officials who drove past my house announced through loudspeakers that we must not go outside and not let air in to protect ourselves from radiation," Oogusa told IPS over an intermittent phone line. "I am trying hard not to lose hope for I am running out of food and wonder what is going to happen next."

Oogusa, who lives in Iwachiku village, weathered the massive quake that hit Fukushima on Mar. 11. It shook her house badly, cutting off the water supply and heat, but never did she expect to be faced with what she describes as a kind of "imprisonment."

"I am angry and sad at the same time over the horror we are facing. I have always been unhappy over the nuclear power plants in our area but I could do nothing about it," she said.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been evacuated from the areas worst affected by the earthquake and tsunami, with many now living in temporary shelters. The maps below show the extent of the evacuation.

Careful out there! There is some nasty malware masquerading as Fukishima satellite images today.

TEPCO : Press Release | Plant Status of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (as of 0:00 pm Mar 17th)

All 6 units of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station have been shut down.

Unit 1(Shut down)
- Reactor has been shut down. However, the explosive sound and white smoke were confirmed after the big quake occurred at 3:36PM Mar 12th. It was assumed to be hydrogen explosion and currently under the investigation.
- We have been injecting sea water into the reactor pressure vessel.

Unit 2(Shut down)
- Reactor has been shut down and Reactor Core Isolation Cooling System has been injecting water to the reactor. However, reactor pressure has increased because the system stopped, causing reactor water level to drop. Following the instruction by the government and with fully securing safety, measure to lower the pressure level within the reactor containment vessel and injection of sea water were taken, reactor pressure and water level resumed.
- We are continuing the injection of sea water into the reactor.
- At approximately 6:00am, an abnormal noise began emanating from nearby Pressure Suppression Chamber and the pressure within this chamber decreased.
- While we continue sea water injection operations, the temporary transfer of TEPCO employees and workers from other companies not directly involved in this work has begun.

Unit 3(Shut down)
- Reactor has been shut down. However, the explosive sound and white smoke were confirmed at 11:01AM Mar 14th. It was assumed to be hydrogen explosion and currently under the investigation.
- We confirmed fog like steam from reactor building at 8:30AM on March 16th.
- As it was reported that the pressure of the Suppression Chamber temporally increased at around 6:15AM on March 17th, we will continue monitoring.
- In order to cool spent fuel pool of Unit 3 we conducted water spray by helicopters of Self-Defense Force at approximately 9:48 am. We are continuously monitoring the spent fuel pool and plan to conduct water spray to other Units.
- We have been injecting sea water into the reactor pressure vessel.

Unit 4 (shut down due to regular inspection) - Reactor has been shut down. However, we have confirmed the sustained damage around the 5th floor rooftop area of the Nuclear Reactor Building.
- Afterwards, we confirmed the outbreak of fire at the northwestern part of Nuclear Reactor Building. We immediately reported this matter to the fire department and the related authorities.
- However, at approximately 11:00am, when TEPCO employee arrived at the seen to confirm, the fire had already died down. At 5:45AM on March 16th, we confirmed the outbreak of the fire again but could not confirm it at 6:15AM. We will continue to monitor the situation carefully.

Unit 5 (outage due to regular inspection)
- Reactor has been shut down and sufficient level of reactor coolant to ensure safety is maintained. - Currently, we do not believe there is any reactor coolant leakage inside the reactor containment vessel.

Unit 6 (outage due to regular inspection)
- Reactor has been shut down and sufficient level of reactor coolant to ensure safety is maintained.
- Currently, we do not believe there is any reactor coolant leakage inside the reactor containment vessel.

...

Others
- We are currently coordinating with the relevant authorities and departments as to how to secure the cooling water to cool down the water in the spent nuclear fuel pool of the plant.

...

- Today, at approximately 10am, we observed 400mSv/h at the inland side of the Unit 3 reactor building and 100mSv/h at the inland side of the Unit 4 reactor building.

TOKYO -- The crisis at the nuclear power plant 140 miles north of here is leading to a steady but orderly departure of business executives from Tokyo. Foreigners in particular are among those leaving, as concerns grow about the possibility of a catastrophic release of radiation and governments urge their citizens to consider seeking safety elsewhere in Japan or overseas.

Much as in 2003, when the SARS virus slowed business around Asia, a peculiar psychology has taken hold in Tokyo, where businessmen with the wherewithal are weighing whether to decamp to cities south and west of Tokyo -- or wait and see whether the nuclear emergency escalates further.

In addition to the distraction of relocating employees, the confusion in some cases is preventing companies from addressing urgent problems in shattered plants and facilities along the northeastern coast of the main island, Honshu, which was ravaged by the earthquake and tsunami last week.

And the oppressive atmosphere of fear has made concentrating on even routine tasks difficult. Meetings are being canceled, salesmen have given up visiting clients and stores are cutting back hours or closing entirely. Getting a table in even the most popular restaurants has suddenly become easier.

1. To register your interest in this 18 March Narita #Tokyo flight please call +44 20 7008 6900. - http://ow.ly/4gKHr 25 minutes ago via HootSuite
2. UK has organised flight departing on 18 March from Narita #Tokyo to Hong Kong for Brits unable to get commercial flights. http://ow.ly/4gKBu

French Prime Minister Francois Fillon tells France 2 television says the country will tighten conditions for export of nuclear reactors:

We will only export nuclear reactors to countries that have reached a level of development and handling of the technology and who have capacity to cope with crises like the one we are witnessing

17,844 buildings were found to have been destroyed by earthquake and tsunami, another 137 by fire.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

Ian Woolverton, from Save the Children, has said that access to clean water is a problem in the Japanese city of Sendai - one of the worst-hit areas. He told the BBC: "What parents and children are telling me is they're most concerned about the lack of clean drinking water for bathing their children in. They're saying to me that they haven't had a chance to give their children a bath since last Friday - so that's one of the biggest concerns."

BBC News - LIVE: Japan earthquake

Japan's government orders radioactivity tests on food produced in the municipality near the Fukushima plant, which has not gone down well with everyone. Tatsuya Kakita, the head of a research institute on consumer issues, tells Kyodo news agency : "The decision makes it look as if contaminated food is already on the market."

shortage of car parts from Japan has forced General Motors to temporarily shutter one of its factories in the United States, the firm said. Production at an assembly plant in the southern state of Louisiana will halt for one week "due to a parts shortage resulting from the crisis in Japan," the Detroit, Michigan-based company said.

ONE lone voice has emerged from the group of heroic workers at Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco), which runs the quake-stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, where workers are scrambling to cool the nuclear plant and avoid a meltdown.

Michiko Otsuki - a female worker at Tepco - has written on her blog, speaking up for her 'silent' colleagues who remained behind at the plant.

She had been quoted a little in some overseas English reports but The Straits Times Online tracked and translated her blog to find out her full story when she first posted on popular Japanese social networking site Mixi.

By Thursday however, her post had been taken down, but the entry had already been reproduced by several online blogs and in Japanese language forums.

Ms Otsuki is one of the 800 employees evacuated from the plant on Monday, leaving 50 workers behind to battle the nuclear crisis.

On Tuesday, she addressed the growing criticisms levelled at Tepco.

'People have been flaming Tepco,' she said. 'But the staff of Tepco have refused to flee, and continue to work even at the peril of their own lives. Please stop attacking us.'

Japanese orphans would greatly benefit from visiting summer camps in Canada after losing parents in the recent quake and tsunami, Japan's envoy Kaoru Ishikawa said at a forum on international relations. The quake struck during the school day at 3pm so many children survived in school buildings designed to withstand seismic events while their parents did not.

I am sorry I haven't put anything up recently. I have been busy finishing a new series of films for BBC-2

As a background to the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant I am putting up a film I made a while ago called A is for Atom. It was part of a series about politics and science called Pandora's Box.

The film shows that from very early on - as early as 1964 - US government officials knew that there were serious potential dangers with the design of the type of reactor that was used to build the Fukushima Daiichi plant. But that their warnings were repeatedly ignored.

<snip>

In 1966 the US government Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards tried to force the industry to redesign their containment structures to make them safer. But the chairman of the committee claims in the film that General Electric in effect refused.

And in 1971 the Atomic Energy Commission did a series of tests of Emergency Core Cooling systems. Accidents were simulated. In each case the emergency systems worked - but the water failed to fill the core. Often being forced out under pressure.

As one of the AEC scientists says in the film:

"We discovered that our theoretical calculations didn't have a strong correlation with reality. But we just couldn't admit to the public that all these safety systems we told you about might not do any good"

And again the warnings were ignored by senior members of the Agency and the industry.

The government's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said later in the day that white smoke was confirmed to be billowing from the nearby No. 2 unit at the power plant, suggesting that a spent nuclear fuel pool in the facility may also be boiling.

A rise in the pool's water temperature, usually at 40 C, causes water to dissipate and expose the spent nuclear fuel rods, which could heat up further and melt, and, in the worst-case scenario, discharge highly radioactive materials, experts say.

AEA offers slide presentation on boiling water reactors (BWRs) and #Japan #earthquake nuclear emergency: http://slidesha.re/ft6oAI

Nuclear Energy Advocates Insist U.S. Reactors Completely Safe Unless Something Bad Happens

WASHINGTON--Responding to the ongoing nuclear crisis in Japan, officials from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission sought Thursday to reassure nervous Americans that U.S. reactors were 100 percent safe and posed absolutely no threat to the public health as long as no unforeseeable system failure or sudden accident were to occur. "With the advanced safeguards we have in place, the nuclear facilities in this country could never, ever become a danger like those in Japan, unless our generators malfunctioned in an unexpected yet catastrophic manner, causing the fuel rods to melt down," said NRC chairman Gregory Jaczko, insisting that nuclear power remained a clean, harmless energy source that could only lead to disaster if events were to unfold in the exact same way they did in Japan, or in a number of other terrifying and totally plausible scenarios that have taken place since the 1950s. "When you consider all of our backup cooling processes, containment vessels, and contingency plans, you realize that, barring the fact that all of those safety measures could be wiped away in an instant by a natural disaster or electrical error, our reactors are indestructible." Jaczko added that U.S. nuclear power plants were also completely guarded against any and all terrorist attacks, except those no one could have predicted.

Who Could Have Predicted?


Wind power

Almost a quarter of Japan's population are 65 or over, and hypothermia, dehydration and respiratory diseases are taking hold among the elderly in shelters, many of whom lost their medication when the wave struck, according to Eric Ouannes, general director of Doctors Without Borders' Japan affiliate.

Japan turned down a US offer to provide technical support for cooling fuel rods at nuclear reactors hit by a massive earthquake and tsunami, a Japanese newspaper reported on Friday. The United States made the offer immediately after the disaster caused damage to Fukushima No.1 nuclear plant, the Yomiuri Shimbun said, quoting a senior official of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan.

If we determine that radiation poses a threat to public health, we will share that information and provide relevant guidance immediately.

Temporary full-time editor

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is looking for an organized, creative, and committed editor to help our team respond to the events in Japan, as well as maintain the daily editing tasks for additional projects. This is a temporary three-month position and is a full-time telecommuting position; this position does not include any benefits.

Meanwhile, engineers got an emergency diesel generator for Unit 6 running that was supplying energy to Units 5 and 6, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said Friday. Water injection to the spent fuel pool was continuing.

FEPC has released another statement. Other regular sources of information are the IAEA and the Japan Atomic Industrial Form.

This time there is no entry for Unit 4, which is the main source of debate between TEPCO and NRC Chairman Jazcko. I am told that is because there is no new information.

Update | 12:08 pm FEPC has provided an update on Unit 4 that argues the helicopter team observed water in the cooling pool.

I continue to be very worried about the possibility of the fire in the SNF cooling pools.

Another colleague has argued that the current plan is to connect an interim power line to the reactor site; the current efforts that seem so feeble are just an attempt to buy enough time to restore power.  That is more or less the view articulated in this AP article by Eric Talmadge and Mari Yamagchi quoting a senior official at TEPCO.

Yes. The worry isn't the rods inside the reactor. The worry is the 514 spent fuel rods that are completely exposed and overheating right now. Some of those in pool 3 are MOX rods. They know MOX rods were put into the pool as recently as September 2010, but no one has published a number that I know of. I think that's the #1 concern. Burning plutonium rods would make the recovery efforts infinitely more difficult on-site.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) asked the Japanese government earlier this week to permit a full withdrawal of its employees from the Fukushima plant, a Japanese daily newspaper has said. TEPCO had first concluded that it would be "difficult" for its workers to continue to restore the Fukushima No.1 nuclear plant, where high levels of radiation have been monitored, the Mainichi Shimbun said.

But Prime Minister Naoto Kan turned down the request, telling TEPCO: "Withdrawal is impossible. It's not a matter of whether TEPCO collapses. It's a matter of whether Japan goes wrong," according to Mainichi. An unnamed official related to TEPCO, however, was quoted by Mainichi as saying:

If withdrawal is unacceptable, it's as if (Kan) said 'Do it until you are exposed to radiation and die.

U.S. officials have told NBC News that they're seeing a disparity between Japanese radiation readings and the readings they've been getting from military monitors.

Concerns about the release of radiation from Japan's stricken nuclear plants at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex began with data collection on the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan. On Monday, the U.S. Seventh Fleet relocated its ships and aircraft out of the downwind direction after crew members returning to the carrier were found to have picked up low levels of radioactive contamination. The personnel were scrubbed down with soap and water, then declared contamination-free.

Since then, the data on radiation releases suggest a range of outcomes, going all the way up to "dire," the officials said. They spoke with NBC on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the findings publicly.

Engineers at Japan's stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant have managed to lay a cable to reactor 2, the UN's nuclear watchdog reports.

Restoring power should enable engineers to restart the pumps which send coolant over the reactor.

Workers at Fukushima have been battling to prevent fuel in the reactors from overheating since Friday's magnitude 9.0 quake and subsequent tsunami.

People around the country--and especially in disaster-hit areas--are demanding to know why so much of the emergency aid sent to survivors of last week's earthquake has not reached the people struggling to survive in shelters.

At the scene of the tragedy, the problem has largely been due to fuel shortages, devastated roads and ports, and difficulty finding enough delivery truck drivers among other reasons.

The public has called on the central and local governments to exercise better leadership to improve the situation.

About 40,000 people are living in shelters in Sendai. Huge quantities of food and other daily necessities have been sent to the city from all over the nation, but most has been slow to reach the shelters due to the fuel shortages.

Nihon Igai Zenbu Chinbotsu is a 2006 Japanese black comedy film directed by Minoru Kawasaki. It is a parody of the 2006 film Japan Sinks.
The original short novel written by Yasutaka Tsutsui criticizes nationalism and racism; and how wrong the notions are. It also describes human beings have no power against great nature.
In the year 2011 the greatest tectonic disaster in the history of mankind has occurred. As a result of the catastrophic earthquakes North and South America, Eurasia, Africa and Australia have sunken underwater while the Japanese islands remain untouched.
Japan suddenly discovers that it is the destination for all the world's surviving refugees. Consequently, they are all forced to make uncomfortable adjustments in order to share the world's last habitable landmass.

Nuclear safety agency says aiming to restore electricity to reactors 3-6 by March 20

Japan earthquake | Page 123 | Liveblog live blogging | Reuters.com

The nuclear safety agency is correcting an earlier statement. They aim restore electricity to reactors No. 3 and 4 by March 20th. Not to reactors 5 and 6

Japan nuclear agency believes there is water in reactor 4 spent fuel pool because aerial video seemed to show water's surface

Grim statistics from Japanese police - the official death toll as of Friday morning: 6,405 dead and 10,259 missing.

Months before publishing 1989's Liar's Poker, the canonical account of life inside 1980s Wall Street, Michael Lewis, author of The Big Short, wrote an article on the prospect of Japan being rocked by a large-scale earthquake -- and what it would mean for the global economy.

....

The article, entitled "How a Tokyo Earthquake Could Devastate Wall Street and the World Economy" and appearing in now-defunct Manhattan Inc., contended not only that a large-scale Japanese earthquake was inevitable -- "A big quake has hit Tokyo roughly every 70 years for four centuries," he wrote -- but that the Japanese government wasn't taking adequate precautions against such a prospect. This decision, he believed, would have disastrous global consequences.

....

Lewis' article ends on this chilling note:

Today, when foreign journalists stumble into MITI and demand to know what will be done about Japan's trade surpluses, they sometimes get this strange answer: 'When the earthquake comes, the trade surplus will go away.' The good news from Oda is that it's probably true. The bad new is that we'll wish it wasn't.

The Self-Defense Forces have started the second day of their operation to cool down one of the spent-fuel storage pools at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Seven high-capacity fire engines were dispatched to the plant on Friday, to inject a total of 50 tons of water into the storage pool of the No.3 reactor.

NHK WORLD English

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano says the government plans to shoot water into the No.1 reactor of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, in addition to the operation at the No.3 reactor.

He said fire engines of the Tokyo Fire Department will shoot water into the spent-fuel storage pool of the No.1 reactor.

Edano said there is no imminent danger at the No.1 reactor, unlike the No.3 and 4 reactors. But he said it is important to increase the amount of water in the
spent-fuel storage pools to prevent a crisis.

He said he wants water to be injected into the No.1 reactor as long as this does not hamper the operation at the No.3 reactor that is using pump trucks of the Self-Defense Forces.

Friday, March 18, 2011 13:21 +0900 (JST)

Click on the name of the webmap or website to open in your browser (sorted by latest entry first).

Radiation levels drop slightly after water cannon. NE monitoring point: 3,339uSv/h at 1450 from 3,484uSV/h at 1350 - TEPCO via NHK

Japanese rice farmer Tsuna Kimura, 83, has an extraordinary story to tell: she escaped last week's massive tsunami on a bicycle. Speaking to reporters about her ordeal, she claimed that at the time, she truly believed "Japan would disappear underwater."

The unfolding disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant follows decades of falsified safety reports, fatal accidents and underestimated earthquake risk in Japan's atomic power industry.

The destruction caused by last week's 9.0 earthquake and tsunami comes less than four years after a 6.8 quake shut the world's biggest atomic plant, also run by Tokyo Electric Power Co. In 2002 and 2007, revelations the utility had faked repair records forced the resignation of the company's chairman and president, and a three-week shutdown of all 17 of its reactors.

With almost no oil or gas reserves of its own, nuclear power has been a national priority for Japan since the end of World War II, a conflict the country fought partly to secure oil supplies. Japan has 54 operating nuclear reactors -- more than any other country except the U.S. and France -- to power its industries, pitting economic demands against safety concerns in the world's most earthquake-prone country.

Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency has reported increasing temperatures in the spent fuel ponds at Units 5 and 6 since 14 March. An emergency diesel generator at Unit 6 is now powering water injection into the ponds at those Units, according to NISA.

The IAEA can confirm the following new information regarding the temperatures of the spent nuclear fuel pools at Units 4, 5 and 6 at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant:

Unit 4
13 March, 19:08 UTC:	84 °C
Unit 5
17 March, 03:00 UTC:	64.2 °C
17 March, 18:00 UTC:	65.5 °C
Unit 6
17 March, 03:00 UTC:	62.5 °C
17 March, 18:00 UTC:	62.0 °C

The IAEA is continuing to seek further information about the water levels, temperature and condition of all spent fuel pool facilities at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

TEPCO says it may connect power to reactor 4 on Saturday.

A few hours ago it said it expects electrical cables to be connected to the generators at reactors 1 and 2 by Saturday morning.

Here is environmental radioactivity measurements of Fukushima prefecture (provisional) at 13:00 March 18, 2011 Unit: μGy / h μSv ≒ / h(Japaneese). www.pref.fukushima.jp

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

Japan's nuclear safety agency says it cannot say yet if conditions at the Fukushima plant are under control.

apan will evacuate hospital patients from an area of 20 to 30 kilometers around the crippled Fukushima plant, public broadcaster NHK television reported.

Citing the country's health ministry, it said about 300 of the 1,100 patients in the area have been moved.

The government will ask hospitals in Tokyo and Yamagata prefecture to accept the patients, it said.

Chinese President Hu Jintao has extended his "sincere sympathies" to disaster-hit Japan during a rare visit to the Japanese embassy in Beijing.

China, which has often prickly relations with its neighbours, "deeply felt the pain that the Japanese people are suffering", President Hu told Japanese ambassador Uichiro Niwa.

President Hu's visit to the embassy led China Central Television's evening news bulletin and came six months after a boat collision in disputed waters in the East China Sea triggered the worst diplomatic crisis between the two countries in years.

State-run television showed images of a sombre-looking Hu meeting with the Japanese ambassador and other officials.

President Hu bowed his head to express his condolences to the victims of the devastating 9.0-magnitude quake.

China, which has so far donated 20,000 tonnes of fuel and £2.78 million in other aid to its stricken Asian neighbour.

The Telegraph's technology correspondent writes how the Japanese earthquake and tsunami are threatening supplies of iPad 2 components as Apple prepares to launch the device worldwide.

Prof Paddy Regan, Prof of Nuclear Physics at the University of Surrey, said many unanswered questions remain about the efforts at the Fukishama plant.

There have been a lot of questions about the amount of radioactivity that those working at the nuclear plant are being exposed to and the effects of this exposure on those individuals.

We know they are not being exposed to over 20 Sv of whole body gamma-ray dose because they would collapse due a breakdown of the central nervous system; if they were exposed to more than 1-2 Sv whole body gamma-ray dose they would be too sick to work.

Reports say that on site workers are being exposed to up to 250 mSv (=0.25 Sv) of total additional radiation. Assuming this refers to 'whole body gamma-ray dose', the most recent International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) report, ICRP 103, suggests that this dose of radiation would constitute an increase in cancer risk over a lifetime of approximately one per cent.

In the average population, risk of a terminal cancer over a lifetime is about 25 per cent, so the additional risk of getting a cancer induced from this level of radiation exposure would be expected to increase by around one per cent.

Last Friday's tsunami generated waves at least 23m (76ft) high, according to a study by the Port and Airport Research Institute in Ofunato, Iwate prefecture, the Yomiuri daily newspaper reports.

Radioactive fallout from Japan's crippled nuclear plant has reached Southern California, US government diplomats have disclosed.

The first readings were below levels that could pose a health hazard, they added.

The diplomat, who has access to radiation tracking by the U.N.'s Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organisation, cited readings from a California-based measuring station of the group.

Initial readings are "about a billion times beneath levels that would be health threatening," the diplomat, who declined to be named, told the AP.

(Reuters) - The man who became the face of the Three Mile Island nuclear disaster in 1979 says he had it easy compared to those trying to regain control of Japan's stricken Fukushima Daiichi plant this week.

Harold Denton, a senior official with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission at the time, was picked by then-President Jimmy Carter to take charge at the Pennsylvania plant as operators were working to regain control of a reactor going into partial meltdown.

He quickly became the face of the Three Mile Island crisis, holding daily news conferences and making regular appearances at the press center set up at the plant, located near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

The incident terrified Americans and set back nuclear power plant developments in the United States for 30 years. Even so, Denton said conditions at the plant were far better than those at the plant at the center of the current crisis in Japan.

"This is certainly far worse than Three Mile Island," Denton said in a phone interview.

HuffPo version HERE.

i remember during one of the Cali quakes the power provided by the San Gorgonio windplant was enough to keep the grid up, as many of the turbines re-started on their own.

Despite assertions by its detractors that wind energy would not survive an earthquake or tsunami the Japanese wind industry is still functioning and helping to keep the lights on during the Fuksuhima crisis.
....
Colleagues and I have been directly corresponding with Yoshinori Ueda leader of the International Committee of the Japan Wind Power Association & Japan Wind Energy Association, and according to Ueda there has been no wind facility damage reported by any association members, from either the earthquake or the tsunami. Even the Kamisu semi-offshore wind farm, located about 300km from the epicenter of the quake, survived. Its anti-earthquake "battle proof design" came through with flying colors.

Mr. Ueda confirms that most Japanese wind turbines are fully operational. Indeed, he says that electric companies have asked wind farm owners to step up operations as much as possible in order to make up for shortages in the eastern part of the country:

Eurus Energy Japan says that 174.9MW with eight wind farms (64% of their total capacity with 11 wind farms in eastern part of Japan) are in operation now. The residual three wind farms (Kamaishi 42.9MW, Takinekoshirai 46MW, Satomi 10.02MW) are stopped due to the grid failure caused by the earthquake and Tsunami. Satomi is to re-start operations in a few days. Kamaishi is notorious for tsunami disaster, but this wind farm is safe because it is locate in the mountains about 900m high from sea level.

The largest wind farm operator in Japan, Eurus Energy with about 22% of all wind turbines in Japan, is a subsidiary of Tokyo Electric Company (TEPCO) which operates the Fukushima nuclear facility.
....
While shares in the Tokyo stock market have fallen during the crisis, the stock price of Japan Wind Development Co. Ltd. has risen from 31,500 yen on 11 March to 47,800 yen on 16 March.

Having visited Eurus on several occasions, I knew they were related to serious Japanese capital entities, but I never knew they were a subsidiary of TEPCO.  another data point in the argument to keep windpower away from utility companies, especially those who have far bigger investment in conventional and nuclear technologies. RWE, E.on, Areva, Scottish and Southern, Edison Mission, et. al., are you listening?

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

UPDATED March 15, 2011 Satellite Photos of Japan, Before and After the Quake and Tsunami Move the slider to compare satellite images from before and after the disaster.

The Momcat just sent me this.

We all bleed the same color.

TEPCO : Press Release | Status of TEPCO's Facilities and its services after Tohoku-Taiheiyou-Oki Earthquake (as of 6:00PM)

• On March 18th, regarding the spent fuel in the common spent fuel pool, we have confirmed that the water level of the pool is secured. A detailed inspection is under preparation.
  * common spent fuel pool: a spent fuel pool for common use set in a separate building in a plant site in order to preserve spent fuel which are transferred from the spent fuel pool in each Unit building.

• On March 17th, we patrolled buildings for dry casks and found no signs of abnormal situation for the casks by visual observation. A detailed inspection is under preparation.
  * dry cask: a measure to store spent fuel in a dry storage casks in storages. Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station started to utilize the measure from August 1995.

The first shows the extent of earthquake and tsunami impact by prefecture.

The second shows the standing water bodies left behind by the tsunami near Sendai.

TEPCO connects line, can supply power to Daiichi plant

The Australian newspaper has published this excellent reconstruction detailing the extensive "mismanagement of the damaged reactors at Fukushima".

TEPCO's mismanagement of the damaged reactors at Fukushima has helped transform a momentary cut in water supply to its reactors into the worst nuclear crisis in a generation.

When all the facts emerge, some believe TEPCO may dwell in corporate infamy alongside Enron and BP.

Here's a 1997 United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission study titled "A Safety and Regulatory Assessment of Generic BWR and PWR Permanently Shutdown Nuclear Power Plants" Scenario 1 in the study is very similar to the situation at Reactor 4. Page 38 shows the probable outcome of a fuel pool fire. Here's the link to the report: www.scribd.com

AFP has more on that "miniscule" amount of radiation detected in California. "Miniscule quantities of the radioactive isotope xenon-133" were picked up by a monitor in Sacramento. "The origin was determined to be consistent with a release from the Fukushima reactors in northern Japan," the Environmental Protection Agency is quoted as saying in a joint statement with the Department of Energy.

As day broke on Saturday, steam was reported to be rising from unit 3, according to Associated Press. Water in that fuel pool is believed to be dangerously low.

Countries have varying evacuation recommendations, but Taiwan's only covers women, children and the elderly. Young men have to tough it out?

The confirmed death toll from the quake and tsunami has risen to 7,197, according to Japan's National Police Agency, and another 10,905 people are listed as missing.

"An interesting tidbit about dinner that you won't hear on Report from the Gates of Hell is that we had salad that came from Disneyland. During the tsunami that followed the earthquake last Friday the parking lot of Tokyo Disneyland was flooded and the park has been closed since. (They are scheduled to reopen on the March 21 from what I hear.) Because they closed unexpectedly they had all of this green salad that they could not use. So it has been distributed to grocery stores and a large bag is being sold for around ¥100 (around US $1.23)."

6:16amMore on those problems with the supply chain. With petrol running low, delivery trucks are struggling to get fuel, food and medicine to those hardest hit by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. And as provisions decline, tension rises.

....

4:09am One week on from the tsunami and the humanitarian crisis continues to deepen in Japan.  As it stands, half a million people are now living in shelters, 2million people remain without electricity, and 1.4million do not have clean drinking water, Al Jazeera's Steve Chao tells us.

....

#3:53am Al Jazeera's Steve Chao, reporting from northern Japan, tells us public anger is starting to rise, with reports of fights at petrol pumps over government-ordered rationing - "unheard of in a nation where politeness is an institution,' he tells us.

3:47am  Plans have been unveiled for 200 "temporary dwellings" in the grounds of a junior high school in the badly hit town of Rikuzentakata, with the construction industry planning to provide 30,000 such homes during the next two months, says Japanese public broadcaster NHK.

3:43am  Doctors in the disaster area are reporting cases of influenza. Other risks to those living in evacuation shelters include hypothermia and DVT.  Evacuees are encouraged to keep warm, drink water, and take regular exercise.

 

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

Our Richard Smith, who has among his many talents knowing a bit about reactors (he wrote code for some systems for them) has been gobsmacked by the lack of remotely adequate information coming from the Fukushima site. Having worked with the Japanese (I was the first gaijin hired into the Japanese hierarchy at Sumitomo Bank when it was a leading player), let me hazard some informed guesses:

    1. Japan is military protectorate of the US, so we are used to throwing our weight around when conditions warrant. But why is this unseemly display warranted?

    2. Japan is not a high disclosure society. Being explicit is considered rude (it's seen as self absorbed, talking for the sake of hearing your own voice). So not telling the public very much, sadly, is pretty normal.

    3. Japanese are also not very good in organizing on the fly group responses. When working with foreigners or independently, Japanese are just as adaptable as any other people. But their group/power dynamics impede taking prompt corrective measures when circumstances move outside anticipated scenarios.

So far, this may seem like tired cultural cliches. But now consider the role of TEPCO. Even allowing for the sluggishness of Japanese decision making in crisis settings, TEPCO looks to be over its head. And the Japanese government is stuck. It doesn't have a ready source of independent expertise; the plants are TEPCO's, after all. The authorities really need staff who know the facilities to handle most of the disaster containment measures.

So why the ugly American noisemaking? It called gaijin pressure, and it has a proud tradition in Japan. Gaijin pressure has often served as the excuse for Japan to push through politically contentious measures that were clearly necessary but opposed by a well placed minority.

Workers struggling to contain radioactive releases from the Fukushima power plant face two critical tasks to avoid turning a nuclear disaster into a catastrophe: preventing a runaway chain reaction into the nuclear fuel and maintaining a massive flow of seawater through the damaged pools and reactor vessels.

....

Edward Morse, a professor of nuclear engineering at UC Berkeley, added that it would take huge amounts of water to compensate for the cracks in a containment pool that were uncovered by U.S. surveillance aircraft on Friday.

....

The other crucial task is to prevent the fuel in any of the reactors or pools from going critical, an event in which nuclear fission starts on its own and generates tremendous amounts of heat. Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the Fukushima plant, said it was importing tons of additional boron to ensure it could flood the reactor with the material, which absorbs neutrons that trigger the breakdown of uranium nuclei.

Not only will water absorb heat, it also forms a protective barrier against radiation, making it safer for workers at the plant, said David Lochbaum, head of nuclear safety policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists and a former nuclear plant operator. "If they can cover the fuel, it will reduce the radiation levels and they can use the plant equipment," Lochbaum said.

Reconnecting power may help in less obvious ways:

But experts think it is unlikely that cooling pumps in the three reactors that were operating when the magnitude 9 Tohoku quake struck -- Nos. 1, 2 and 3 -- will work even with an outside source of electricity. Those pumps were probably damaged in a series of hydrogen explosions that occurred in the first four days of the crisis. The power lines could provide electricity to operate valves and controls, however.

There is no indication that the cooling pump servicing the cracked spent fuel pond on the upper floor of reactor No. 4 has been damaged, so officials hope to restore it to action.

Lochbaum said it should be possible to get enough pumping capacity to fill the pools and the reactors, even if they have breaches. In the case of the cracked spent fuel pool in No. 4, he said a simple rubber seal may account for some or all of the leakage and, if so, the seal could be reinflated once power is restored to the plant.

The article goes on to discuss why attempting to entomb the reactor in concrete could be a bad idea, but this is different from pouring boron and sand over spent fuel pools, where water could still be added. But one objection remains: the weight of added materials might cause structural problems that could further threaten the existing containment. But this would be much less of a problem for covering only the spent fuel pool as opposed to entombing the entire reactor in concrete now, which I have never previously heard proposed.


"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

A strange legacy of the Japanese power system's infancy in the late 1800s is complicating efforts to keep Tokyo supplied with electricity. The problem, as explained by IDG News Service's Martyn Williams, is that half of the country uses power whose current alternates at 60 Hz, while the other half gets its power at 50 Hz.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/03/tech-legacy-tokyo/

TEPCO : Press Release | Plant Status of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (as of 9:00 AM Mar 19th)

- We measured radioactive materials (iodine etc.) inside of the nuclear
  power station area (outdoor) by monitoring car and confirmed that
  radioactive materials level is getting higher than ordinary level. As
  listed below, we have determined that specific incidents stipulated in
  article 15, clause 1 of Act on Special Measures Concerning Nuclear
  Emergency Preparedness (Abnormal increase in radiation dose measured at
  site boundary) have occurred.
  · Determined at 4:17 PM Mar 12th (Around Monitoring Post 4 )
  · Determined at 8:56 AM Mar 13th (Around Monitoring Post 4 )
  · Determined at 2:15 PM Mar 13th (Around Monitoring Post 4 )
  · Determined at 3:50 AM Mar 14th (Around Monitoring Post 6 )
  · Determined at 4:15 AM Mar 14th (Around Monitoring Post 2 )
  · Determined at 9:27 AM Mar 14th (Around Monitoring Post 3 )
  · Determined at 9:37 PM Mar 14th (Around main entrance )
  · Determined at 6:51 AM Mar 15th (Around main entrance )
  · Determined at 8:11 AM Mar 15th (Around main entrance )
  · Determined at 4:17 PM Mar 15th (Around main entrance )
  · Determined at 11:05 PM Mar 15th (Around main entrance )
  · Determined at 8:58 AM Mar 19th (Around MP5)

Earlier at No. 3, extra water apparently couldn't wait until the morning:

TEPCO : Press Release | Plant Status of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (as of 9:00 AM Mar 19th)

- After that, from 0:30 AM, Mar 19th, water discharge by Tokyo Fire
  Department's Hyper Rescue was conducted and completed at 1:10 AM.

Power to No. 2:

TEPCO : Press Release | Plant Status of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (as of 9:00 AM Mar 19th)

- We completed receiving electricity from the external transmission line
  up to the auxiliary transformer. We are installing the power cable from
  that transformer to the temporary power panel.

They also report working on power to No. 3, 4, 5 and 6, and repaired the emergency diesel generator for the last two.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

The Japanese Government's Appalling Earthquake Response (The Daily Beast)

No Fuel
Because the government did not ease the regulation on the stocks of fossil fuels, there is a severe lack of fuel in all of Tokyo and the Tohoku area. Because there is no fueling point in the area, neither civilian nor military logistical support can go up there. The effects are:

1. There is no fuel for heating.
   
2. Food and medicine are not arriving at the refugee centers.
   
3. There is no fuel to operate the machinery for clearing the streets, the debris, and so on, so at this point they are not operating.
   
4. People with cars, even the people near the nuclear sites, cannot escape, as the cars have run out of gasoline.
   
5. Due to the lack of fuel, elderly people are dying of cold, stress, malnutrition, and lack of medicine. Twenty-four of them have died so far.
   
6. Due to lack of food and medicine, the sick and wounded are not getting treatment and cannot be moved to hospitals in other areas.
   
7. Medical doctors cannot go into the region because there is nowhere to get gasoline.
   

The world needs to understand that incompetence is killing people, even though they were saved from the earthquake.
NOTE: There are no cars or trucks going through, although the main roads have already been cleared.

Japan's Defense Minister says the surface temperatures of the 4 damaged reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant are lower than 100 degrees Celsius.

Toshimi Kitazawa told a news conference in Tokyo on Saturday that water-spraying proved to be effective in cooling down the temperature of the spent fuel rod pool of the No.3 reactor.

He said SDF officials measured the temperatures while observing the damage from a helicopter.

Kitazawa said the government's disaster task force reports that a temperature of less than 100 degrees Celsius shows the reactors are more stable than had been expected.

He said Prime Minister Naoto Kan directed him to extensively collect and thoroughly analyze the data from the reactor.

He also said he will continue the assessment on Sunday.

Kitazawa said he believes the sprayed water is filling the spent fuel rod pool to a significant degree.

Saturday, March 19, 2011 19:15 +0900 (JST)

GE denies Fukushima power plants had design flaws

The accident at the quake-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has triggered a debate over the safety of nuclear power in the United States.

An explosion occurred near the suppression pool of the Number 2 reactor on Tuesday, which is likely to have damaged the facility, and another explosion occurred at the building of the Number 1 reactor.

Some US media have quoted experts who point out that the design flaws by the US-based General Electric Company, which manufactured the 2 reactors, made the problem more serious.

Dale Bridenbaugh, who designed and developed nuclear reactors for GE, told NHK that the facilities to house the reactors at the Fukushima plant were made smaller to cut costs, making them structurally vulnerable.

GE, in response, released a statement on Friday, saying that its products meet the US government's safety standards.

The company says its products are designed appropriately in accordance with official guidelines, and improvements have been made.

More than 20 nuclear power plants of the same type as the Number 1 and Number 2 reactors of the Fukushima Daiichi plant are being used in the United States.
The accident has triggered a debate over the safety of nuclear power, and some residents living near the plants want them to be suspended.

Saturday, March 19, 2011 18:58 +0900 (JST)

I don't think the size and dimensioning of the reactor buildings came up among the design flaw charges, or the suspected reasons for the disaster...

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

• NHK 9 pm news just said Tokyo Fire Department's rescue team completed 7-hour automated pumping (3 tons per minute) of water from a 22-meter high special cannon mounted on their vehicle into No. 3. They will continue the operation for a few more hours at the PM's request.

• Outside power supply has been just connected to No. 1 and 2. No.3 and 4 will be connected tomorrow.

• The emergency generator in No. 5 has been fixed and the temperature of spent fuel pool in No. 5 and 6 is decreasing. It is now below prescribed 65 degrees celsius in No. 5.

• I refueled my car today with less queueing today (Tokyo).

• Foods and other supplies are pretty much back to the normal level.

• Thank you again for your continued concern for the victims, and for your governments' help.

The coastal city of Rikuzentakata, Iwate prefecture, became the first among quake-hit municipalities to get temporary housing for evacuees on Saturday as construction of about 200 30-sq-m (323 sq feet) prefabricated housing units started on the grounds of a junior high school, Kyodo reports.

The government says parts of the cooling systems at 2 of the 6 reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have been confirmed to be operable.

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency told a news conference on Saturday that an emergency diesel generator at the No. 6 reactor has resumed operation.

The agency also said that a cooling pump, at the No. 5 reactor, has been confirmed to be usable, and that workers started cooling the spent fuel storage pool there at 5 AM on Saturday.

The agency said the radiation level at the west gate of the plant, located about 1.1 kilometers west of the No. 3 reactor, was relatively high at 830.8 microsieverts per hour at 8:10 AM. But it said the figure fell to 364.5 microsieverts at 9:00 AM(JST).

IAEA says Japan has made holes in the roofs of units 5 and 6 at quake-hit nuclear site to guard against any hydrogen explosion. The IAEA adds that radiation levels in major Japanese cities have not changed since Friday.

The nuclear industry likes to claim that each new reactor model is safer than the last. The unfolding nuclear emergency in Japan suggests otherwise.

The PM's Office of Japan tweets:For people living in Tohoku and Kanto regions - How to protect from radioactive rainfall (Japanese Atomic Energy Commission). "Try not to go out unless it is an emergency. Make sure of covering up hair and skin as much as possible. In case your clothes or skin is exposed to rain, wash it carefully with running water. "

A correction was issued in regards to Japan halting food sales in the area near Fukushima nuclear plant. The IAEA is now correcting its statement to: Japan is considering a ban, has not applied ban already.

Iwaki Kyoritsu Hospital is only 45 kilometers (28 miles) from the Fukushima nuclear power plant. It's the largest hospital in the region, and it specializes in caring for premature babies. It's also one of the few hospitals in the disaster area to escape the earthquake and tsunami relatively unscathed.

When the earthquake struck last Friday morning, the hospital had 650 patients. Since then, a little more half have been released or transferred to other hospitals. But the hospital still has more than 300 sick patients, and the situation there is growing increasingly precarious.

"We are running out of medicine, and we urgently need help," Nobuo Hiwatashi, the hospital's 62-year-old director, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. He said the situation had been especially difficult during the first days after the earthquake because the power had been cut off. The hospital was also short on food and other supplies, and Hiwatashi feared that his staff wouldn't be able to take care of its patients. However, since then, they've been able to provide packaged soups and rice balls.

Hiwatashi adds that the number of people injured in the area is relatively modest because the tsunami apparently killed far more people than it injured. Still, though the hospital now has far fewer patients, it is still seeing 30 new admissions of injured people each day. "We provide ambulatory care to most and then send them back home," he says. "Most of the people who come to us are elderly. They are brought to us from emergency shelters." He said they often arrive frail, weak or chronically ill.

(Reuters) - As Japan considers burying its destroyed nuclear reactors in concrete, as at Chernobyl, other aspects of the disaster at Fukushima have also drawn comparisons with the drama that hit the Soviet Union 25 years ago.

Among these is the way the public has complained of feeling kept in the dark as a situation which officials at first said was fairly minor has slowly built to catastrophic proportions.

Back in 1986, the first indication the world was suffering its worst nuclear disaster came when a Swedish power station worker's clothing set off a radiation warning.

For two days, radioactive material from the burning reactor had been spreading west through the Soviet Union and Europe, affecting millions of people. But the authorities in Moscow had tried to keep the catastrophe quiet.

Officials are keen to put the amount of radiation present in tap water in perspective. Drinking one litre of watre with iodine at Thursday's levels [when levels were highest] is the equivalent of receiving 1/88th of the radiation from a chest x-ray, Kazuma Yokota, a spokesman for the Fukushima prefecture disaster response is quoted by the Associated Press news agency as saying.

Survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki share an affliction and a story. They also share a name.

The 227,565 people recognized by the Japanese government are hibakusha, a name that literally means "explosion-affected people."

Generations ago the term was regarded by the Japanese as a mark of shame, a sign that one was potentially damaged. Impure by no fault of one's own.

Now, with radiation leaking from the Fukushima plant, some question whether the next generation will apply the term to the potentially tens of thousands affected or take a more modern approach to those emerging from one of the worst nuclear disasters in history.

SITUATION SUMMARY
· A 9.0 magnitude earthquake occurred on 11 March 2011 in Japan at 5:46:23 GMT,
hitting the northeast coast of Honshu, Japan.
· Based on official Japanese government figures, 6 548 persons are confirmed dead, 2 516
injured with more than 10 354 missing. At least 131 persons remain to be evacuated
and 376 907 have been evacuated.
· A small number of influenza-like illness and gastroenteritis cases have been reported
from several evacuation centres.

PARIS - The plume from Fukushima has now reached the western Atlantic but its radioactivity is likely to be "extremely low" and have no impact on health or the environment, France's Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) said on Saturday.

"As of yesterday, the cloud covered most of North America and northeastern Siberia. It is currently passing over the North Atlantic," it said, naming French terroritories in the Caribbean and off Canada's eastern coast.

The cloud has been progressively thinning as it heads eastwards around the northern hemisphere at high altitude and will reach mainland Europe on Wednesday or Thursday, it said, citing a computer model jointly compiled with the French weather service, Meteo France.

"The concentrations of caesium 137 in the air over land traversed by the plume are expected to be extremely low," it said.

Swedish Foreign Office recommends Swedish citizens in Tokyo to start eating Potassium Iodide tablets. As there are a danger of winds carrying radioactivity over Tokyo. Swedes that don´t have tablets can collect them from the Swedish Embassy. www.regeringen.se

Six workers at the crisis-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have been exposed to radiation levels beyond the limit applied to an emergency operation, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Saturday, without elaborating on the work that they were engaged in.

They are continuing to work on different tasks because they have not shown any abnormal signs since being exposed to over 100 millisieverts of radiation, the utility said. The limit has been raised to 250 millisieverts for the ongoing crisis, the worst in Japan's history, by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry.

The September 11 large-scale terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon show the threat of nuclear and radiological terrorism is real. A successful attack or sabotage on a nuclear facility could cause the most potentially devastating radiological release into the atmosphere. While many people focus their concerns on the vulnerability of reactor containment buildings, an increasing number of nuclear experts are concerned about the spent fuel pools (SFP) which would be more vulnerable than the reactor containment building, because most SFPs are housed in far less robust structures than the reactor containment vessels. Moreover, a SFP would contain much more radiation than a reactor core. ^[1] In particular, one major concern is the vulnerability of the pools' cooling systems. In absence of cooling water, the spent fuel would overheat, and the fuel-cladding could melt or catch fire in some cases. Thus it could release radioactive substances to the environment.

A family friend of one of the workers - the team battling to control the crisis at the power plant - said that email and phone access had been cut and one man had been unable to speak to his wife for days.

The move comes after one of the Fifty texted his wife in Japan saying that drinking water at the plant was running low, adding: "I feel like I'm coming down with something."

Fukushima workers interviewed by The Sunday Telegraph at a special evacuation centre in the city of Koriyama said they had lost confidence in the management of the plant.

"We were told that safety was a top priority," said one staff member, who asked to remain anonymous. "We went through simulations of what to do in an emergency, but we never thought it would be as bad as this. I don't want to go back there."