Economics is politics by other means

The Japanese government's nuclear safety agency has decided to raise the crisis level of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant accident from 5 to 7, the worst on the international scale.

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency made the decision on Monday. It says the damaged facilities have been releasing a massive amount of radioactive substances, which are posing a threat to human health and the environment over a wide area.

The agency used the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale, or INES, to gauge the level. The scale was designed by an international group of experts to indicate the significance of nuclear events with ratings of 0 to 7.

Four people were killed and 3 others seriously injured in a strong aftershock that hit northeastern Japan on Monday, just one month after the March 11th disaster.

Police say 4 people were trapped inside a house in Iwaki City, Fukushima Prefecture. They were buried under mudslide triggered by a magnitude 7.0 earthquake that struck at 5:16 PM.

10000 TeraBq / hour would be for instance 2 kilograms of I-131 per hour

http://www.inkers.nl/js/convert-from-becq.html

Or 75000 kilograms of Cesium-137 (Not likely)

The risks associated with iodine-131 contamination in Europe are no longer "negligible," according to CRIIRAD, a French research body on radioactivity. The NGO is advising pregnant women and infants against "risky behaviour," such as consuming fresh milk or vegetables with large leaves.

In response to thousands of inquiries from citizens concerned about fallout from the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Europe, CRIIRAD has compiled an information package on the risks of radioactive iodine-131 contamination in Europe.

The document, published on 7 April, advises against consuming rainwater and says vulnerable groups such as children and pregnant or breastfeeding women should avoid consuming vegetables with large leaves, fresh milk and creamy cheese.

One month has passed since the magnitude-9.0 Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11 triggered a massive tsunami that devastated coastal parts of Tohoku and Kanto. The Yomiuri Shimbun will examine the ensuing crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, pinpoint what occurred and analyze how the government, TEPCO and other parties involved should have responded to the series of accidents at the plant that have been an international issue. This is the first installment in a series.

The nuclear power complex crisis has brought to light the vacuum in the government's crisis management capabilities, which analysts say triggered jitters in the United States.

Shortly before 9 a.m. on March 12, when the gravity of the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant began becoming evident, Adm. Robert Willard, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, phoned Gen. Ryoichi Oriki, chief of staff of the Self-Defense Forces' Joint Staff.

Willard was quoted as telling Oriki the U.S. Pacific Command chief had been instructed by the White House to publicly call on Japan to provide accurate information regarding the nuclear plant crisis, including questioning whether the Fukushima plant was safe.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan's blood must have run cold around 10 p.m. on March 11, the day of the Great East Japan Earthquake, when he received the first report on the terrible situation at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

The report from the Nuclear and Industry Safety Agency of the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry predicted reactor cores at the nuclear power plant--where power and all functions to cool the reactors were lost in the quake and tsunami--would be exposed to air, and that extreme heat generated by fuel rods would damage their encasing tubes later that night.

Fuel rods would melt down, and the following morning the pressure inside the reactors' containment vessels would reach the maximum allowed for by the facilities' designers, the report predicted.

Kan and everyone at the Prime Minister's Office understood the seriousness of the situation described by the report.

(Reuters) - A fire broke out at Japan's crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, operator Tokyo Electric and Power (TEPCO) said on Tuesday, although flames and smoke were no longer visible.

A worker saw fire at a building near the No.4 reactor at around 6:38 a.m. (21:38 GMT) and a fire fighting unit of the Self Defence Forces was sent to fight the blaze, a TEPCO spokesman said.

"Flames and smoke are no longer visible but we are awaiting further details regarding whether the fire has been extinguished completely," he said.

And some more bad news for rice farmers in Japan, who were already told that planting of this key crop would be banned in contaminated soil ahead of the rice planting season which begins in April and May. The problem so far has been the nobody really knows how to classify contaminated soil, and how far it spreads. Now a new study from Hiroshima and Kyoto Universities has found that the radioactive content of soil samples beyond the 30 km semi-evacuation zone is as much as 400 times the normal. From Asahi: "The predicted changes in the level of radiation at the ground surface were calculated after analyzing the amounts of eight kinds of radioactive materials found in the soil and taking into consideration the half-lives of each material. The study results are considered more accurate than the study conducted by the science ministry, which only released information concerning two types of radioactive material. [Scholars] collected soil samples from five locations in the village at depths of five centimeters. All the locations were outside the 30-km radius and were by roadways in various hamlets. The study found cesium-137 at levels between about 590,000 and 2.19 million becquerels per cubic meter." Comparing this to Chernobyl: "After the Chernobyl nuclear accident in the former Soviet Union in 1986, residents who lived in areas where cesium-137 levels exceeded 555,000 becquerels were forced to move elsewhere. The amounts of cesium-137 found in Iitate were at most four times the figure from Chernobyl."

Among people who survived the March 11 massive quake and tsunami but died later in the month in the disaster-stricken Tohoku region, at least 282 were believed to have succumbed to postdisaster-linked factors, such as cold temperatures and unsanitary conditions at evacuation sites that aggravated their chronic illnesses, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned.

The findings were made through inquiries to key hospitals designated to handle major natural disasters in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures.

As many of those hospitals located along the Iwate Prefecture coast that were seriously affected by the twin disasters have not responded to the Yomiuri's inquiry, meaning the number of such deaths indirectly linked to the quake and tsunami is certain to rise further.

Results of Greenpeace Radiation team independent monitoring of air, soil, and food in the vicinity of the Fukushima nuclear plant.

(Reuters) - The Japanese government is considering spinning off the part of Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) that oversees the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, Jiji news agency reported on Tuesday.

The spun-off unit would become a government funded firm dealing with the nuclear accident and compensation issues, while the remaining part of TEPCO would stay publicly listed, Jiji reported without citing a source.

On March 11 a magnitude 9 earthquake and a massive tsunami triggered the nuclear disaster where reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi facility, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo, were hit by a loss of power which disabled cooling functions.

The fate of plant operator TEPCO, at the center of the world's worst nuclear disaster in 25 years, remains uncertain as it struggles to contain the accident and faces huge compensation requirements that could total several trillion yen according to media reports.

The Fukushima prefectural government has begun a program to measure radiation levels at more than 2700 locations across the region.

In response to residents' concerns, on Tuesday officials began examining radiation levels at 2,757 sites in 55 municipalities around the prefecture.

However, they plan to exclude the area within a 20-kilometer radius of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, where residents have been instructed to evacuate.

In front of the Iwaki railway station, officials measured radiation levels at 1 centimeter and 1 meter above the ground.

TEPCO, meanwhile, took 400 milliliters of water from the spent fuel pool of the No. 4 unit to check to what extent the spent nuclear fuel stored there is damaged.

There is a possibility that the fuel may have been temporarily exposed when the water level at the storage pool dropped following the March 11 disaster, but camera footage found that the water level now was enough to cover the fuel. But the temperature of the water was 90 degrees, much higher than the usual 20-30 degrees.

Minute amounts of radioactive strontium have been detected in soil and plants in Fukushima Prefecture beyond the 30-kilometer zone around the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, the science ministry said Tuesday.

It is the first time that radioactive strontium has been detected since the Fukushima plant began leaking radioactive substances after it was severely damaged by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

There is no safety limit set by the government for exposure to strontium, but the amount found so far is extremely low and does not pose a threat to human health, the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology said.

Takesato Watanabe, a media scholar at Doshisha University in Kyoto, praises both NHK and Japan's commercial media for their job in reporting on the earthquake and tsunami. "But about the nuke accident," he comments, "I think NHK do know the facts, what's happening, but they are not reporting well, and private broadcasters, they don't have any staff who understand the nuke accidents scientifically."

Watanabe argues that Japanese media have not been critical enough because they themselves are part of the network of vested interests that includes power companies and government regulators. He says that for decades, NHK and other Japanese media have conveyed the nuclear lobby's message that nuclear power is necessary for Japan and nuclear accidents are unlikely. He points out that NHK's funding must be approved by Japan's Diet, or Parliament.

"To get NHK's budget passed in the Diet," he notes, NHK "must follow the ideas of the ruling party, or economic circles' ideas, represented by the power stations."

A theater in Tokyo's Nakano Ward will screen more than a dozen nuclear-themed movies later this month to mark the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster which took place on April 26, 1986 in the former Soviet Union.

Officials at the theater said they had been planning to screen movies about atomic bombs in conjunction with a similar-themed exhibition scheduled for early April at the Meguro Museum of Art. But the plan was abandoned after the museum canceled the exhibition in the wake of the accident at the Fukushima nuclear plant saying it may spread excessive fear or possible misunderstanding about radiation, according to organizers.

''We hope that the screening event will provide an opportunity for people to discuss why we need nuclear power stations now that a level 7 accident has occurred in Japan,'' said Shohei Ishikawa, one of the organizers, referring to the maximum severity level applied to the ongoing crisis at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, putting it on a par with the Chernobyl accident.

It took TEPCO about 15 hours to vent steam from the nuclear reactor vessel at the Fukushima facility's No. 1 reactor, despite having recognized the need to do so by the evening of March 11.
....

According to some observers, Prime Minister Naoto Kan's on-site inspection of disaster-stricken areas on the morning of March 12 may also have contributed to the delay. "TEPCO might've held off the venting so the prime minister wouldn't be exposed to radiation," one observer said. At a press conference Thursday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano hinted at his distrust in the power utility. "[TEPCO] didn't explain why it hadn't started [the venting] yet. We'd already issued an order [to do so]," he said.

Edano's remark has aroused speculation that the absence of top TEPCO officials from the company early on in the crisis might have adversely affected the company's decision-making process regarding the venting of steam from the reactor. At the time of the earthquake, Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata was in Beijing, while President Masataka Shimizu was in Kansai, both of them on business trips. Lacking their top two executives, the utility's head office in Tokyo launched a disaster management headquarters with Vice President Takashi Fujimoto as its acting chief.

From the evening of March 11, the Prime Minister's Office and other authorities had asked TEPCO repeatedly to vent the reactor, but the operation did not take place until 10:17 a.m. after Shimizu had arrived at the main office. The decision to inject seawater to cool the reactor cores was another big call, but did not begin until past 8 p.m. on March 12 after Katsumata returned to Japan.

Venting a reactor heightens the risk of radioactive contamination. This decision could place enormous social responsibility on the company and also make it liable for substantial damages. And injecting water into a reactor core essentially destroys it. One reactor costs about 100 billion yen to replace.

A company's shareholders generally are informed before such major actions are taken, and they are not the type of orders that can easily be conveyed over a mobile phone from the Kansai region or China.

Although lionized as the "Fukushima 50" by the foreign media, there are in fact about 700 workers engaged in the daily struggle with the "invisible enemy" at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

[...]

A man in his 40s, who was dispatched to Fukushima No. 1 from a partner of the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), said, "I did not want to go there. But if I reject the request, I will lose my job."

The daily pay is less than 20,000 yen ($236).

"I hear some construction workers were employed at a wage of several tens of thousands of yen per hour. But we are working on a conventional daily wage as our company has had cooperative relationships with TEPCO," the man said.

Japan's science ministry says small amounts of radioactive strontium have been detected in soil and plants outside the 30-kilometer zone around the Fukushima plant where the government has advised people to stay indoors. Strontium could cause cancer.

The ministry has been monitoring the level of radioactive substances in soil and weeds in Fukushima Prefecture.

It found 3.3 to 32 becquerels of strontium 90 per kilogram of soil in samples taken from 3 locations in Namie Town and Iitate Village, 30 kilometers from the plant.  

 The science ministry says radiation levels in seawater off the coast of Fukushima Prefecture are the highest since it began monitoring them about 3 weeks ago.

The ministry says the level of iodine-131 was 88.5 becquerels per liter in a sample taken on Monday in the sea about 30 kilometers east of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. The figure is 2.2 times the government's upper limit for wastewater from nuclear facilities.

The level of cesium-137 was also the highest observed so far, but was below the limit.

The Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, says the water temperature in the spent fuel storage pool at the No. 4 reactor in the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant has risen to about 90 degrees Celsius. It fears the spent fuel rods may be damaged.

TEPCO took the temperature on Tuesday using an extending arm on a special vehicle. It found the temperature was much higher than the normal level of under 40 degrees.

To cool the fuel, TEPCO sprayed 195 tons of water for 6 hours on Wednesday morning.

More than 28,000 people are dead or missing after the March 11th disaster and recent aftershocks in eastern Japan.

According to the National Police Agency, the deaths of 13,392 people have so far been confirmed. Most of the deaths occurred in Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima, the 3 hardest stricken prefectures. Miyagi topped the list at 8,190, followed by Iwate at 3,867 and Fukushima at 1,272.

About 83 percent, or 11,156, of the recovered bodies have been identified and handed or are being handed over to the victims' families.

A research team from Kyoto, Hiroshima, Kokugakuin, Nihon universities presents its "Interim Report on Radiation Survey in Iitate Village area conducted on March 28th and 29th" : http://www.rri.kyoto-u.ac.jp/NSRG/se...port110404.pdf. It includes a gamma ray radionuclide analysis of soil samples.

Paris (AFP) April 12, 2011
The accident at Fukushima has released "significant" amounts of radiation but at levels and with an impact that are "not comparable" to Chernobyl, France's nuclear safety agency said on Tuesday.

"At present... Fukushima is not, nor will it be, Chernobyl, even though it is a very serious accident," the head of the Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN), Patrick Gourmelon, said.

Japan earlier Tuesday hiked its rating of the Fukushima accident from five to a maximum of seven on a worldwide scale, a slot previously only occupied by the April 26 1986 catastrophe in Ukraine.

"Releases (of radioactivity at Fukushima) have not changed. It is only a re-evaluation in the light of the strict criteria" used for the International Nuclear Events Scale (INES), said Thierry Charles, in charge of safety at the IRSN.

The government's nuclear safety agency is set to review safety measures at nuclear power plants across Japan.

This follows the discovery that one of the aftershocks following the March 11th earthquake was stronger than the level thought of as safe for measures in place at the Onagawa nuclear power plant in Miyagi Prefecture, northeastern Japan.

In last month's massive earthquake the intensity of the temblor was up to 10 percent stronger than the level to which the No. 1 to No.3 Reactors were designed for at the Onagawa plant.  

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

The concentration levels of radioactive iodine and cesium in groundwater near the troubled Nos. 1 and 2 reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have increased up to several dozen times in one week, suggesting that toxic water has seeped from nearby reactor turbine buildings or elsewhere, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Thursday.

The announcement came as the plant operator continued to grapple with pools of highly radioactive water found on the plant's premises, with the level of polluted water filling an underground trench edging up again after the company finished pumping out around 660 tons of water.

According to the latest findings, a groundwater sample taken April 6 near the No. 1 reactor turbine building showed radioactive iodine-131 of 72 becquerels per cubic meter, with the concentration level growing to 400 becquerels as of Wednesday. The concentration level of cesium-134 increased from 1.4 becquerels to 53 becquerels.

This is the third installment in a series focusing on delays in implementing emergency steps by the government and Tokyo Electric Power Co. to deal with the unprecedented nuclear crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

TEPCO's venting of radioactive steam from a reactor at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant came too late, but even after the utility acted, a series of hydrogen explosions at the plant's reactor buildings quickly turned the situation into a nightmare the government's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency had never anticipated.

Under ordinary circumstances, reactor containment vessels that cover pressure vessels contain nearly no oxygen, making it almost impossible for the substance to chemically react with hydrogen and set off a blast. Even if hydrogen is generated in a reactor, it should not leak from the containment vessel. But after the disaster damaged pipe joints in the reactor building, hydrogen from inside the reactor leaked into the outer structure.

The first blast occurred at the No. 1 reactor at 3:36 p.m. on March 12, about five hours after the radioactive steam was released. The event violently shook an earthquake-resistant building nearby that was housing the crisis headquarters in the compound.

When the earthquake struck Japan on March 11th and knocked out TEPCO's Fukushima nuclear reactor, setting off a chain reaction of disasters-TEPCO's chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata was nowhere to be found.  Where was he? He was on a tour of China with members of some of Japan's largest media outlets-and TEPCO was footing the bill.

On March 30th, not only did TEPCO admit that the chairman had been taking Japanese mass media power brokers on the trip to China but also that TEPCO paid the majority of the travel fees for the participants. 

The Netherlands has started to take stronger measures to check radiation on imports from Japan following the accidents at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

On Thursday, the media was allowed to cover inspections at the Port of Rotterdam, one of the busiest ports in Europe. The first ship from Japan since the nuclear power plant crisis entered the port on the day.

Custom officials checked trucks carrying Japanese goods using devices measuring radioactivity.

In addition to their normal procedures, the Dutch government is conducting radiation checks not only on ships from Japan at sea, but also on Japanese goods before they land in the port.

Nuclear fuel inside the crippled reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant has partially melted and settled at the bottom of pressure vessels in the shape of grains, according to an analysis by the Atomic Energy Society of Japan made public by Friday.

The academic body's panel on nuclear energy safety has said the melted fuel at the No. 1 to 3 reactors has been kept at a relatively low temperature, discounting the possibility that a large amount of melted fuel has already built up at the bottom of their reactor vessels given the temperature readings there.

...The panel has also said that the fuel grains with a diameter of between several millimeters and 1 centimeter are believed to have settled flatly at the bottom of the vessels, leaving almost no possibility of a nuclear chain reaction called ''recriticality.''

Takashi Sawada, deputy chairman of the group, gave the assessment that even if the current stabilization efforts proceed smoothly, it would take at least two to three months for the fuel to be stabilized with few if any radioactive emissions.

 Tokyo Electric Power Company says the level of radioactive water is increasing in a tunnel at the No.2 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

The large amount of contaminated water in basements and tunnels is hampering operations to restore the plant's cooling systems.

On Wednesday, TEPCO finished transferring some of the wastewater -- about 660 tons -- from the No.2 reactor tunnel to a condenser in a turbine building.

It says the water level in the tunnel dropped 8 centimeters after the transfer, but had returned to its previous level by Friday morning.

So in 40 hours, 660 tons has been replaced, during that time, TEPCO has pumped 7 tons an hour each into reactors 2 and 3 and 6 into reactor 1

if none of the water is boiling away (And steam is visible from at least two of the reactors when the wind is low enough, so some is boiling off and that cant be true) then the ammount that has appeared in the trench is more than has been pumped into reactors 2 and 3 in total....

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

The total level of radioactive materials in water dumped in the sea from the crippled nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture earlier this month was lower than previously estimated, the plant's operator reported to the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency on Friday.

Receiving the report, the agency instructed Tokyo Electric Power Co. to study in more detail the impact on the marine environment of the move, including radiation levels in fish and clams, and to make the results public.

As the nation's worst nuclear crisis drags on more than a month after it was triggered by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, small amounts of plutonium have been detected for the third time in soil samples taken at the six-reactor Fukushima Daiichi complex, the plant operator said.

This is the fourth installment in a series focusing on delays in implementing emergency steps by the government and Tokyo Electric Power Co. to deal with the unprecedented nuclear crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

Pumping water into nuclear reactors and storage pools for spent fuel rods at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant was an indispensable move. If the reactors were not kept cool and the pools full, an even worse disaster could have occurred at the stricken nuclear facility. But the action was not without consequences.

Since March 12--the day after the plant was damaged by a massive earthquake and tsunami--about 30,000 tons of water have been sprayed into the reactors by Self-Defense Forces, police and other workers.

Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Photos 8

I believe containment pressures, according to what I have heard (not seen printed) may have been as high as 120 psig. Most Mark 1s in the US have a 56 psig Design Pressure. It is conjectured that 2x design pressure results in stretched Drywell Head closure studs. Resulting in self - venting of the Containment inside the Reactor Building. Steam coming from the shield plugs should be observable and Reactor Bldg Area Radiation Monitors should alarm.

MELCOR analysis study of Peach Bottom was computer modeled in the 1990s - predicting that beyond design basis severe accident the Mark 1 fails at the Drywell Head Seal at 132 psi.

<snip>

If containment venting doesn't occur, pressure builds. Once the flange and head get separated, the Drywell pressure will vent off through the clearance. (Self venting ) This would produce steam escaping with zirc water reaction generated Hydrogen.
Note all three Reactor Buildings appeared to explode on the Refuel Floor.
IMO - purely conjecture - some Hydrogen still trapped below the shield cookies, probably went off and lifted them up."

HAZARDS OF BOILING WATER REACTORS IN THE UNITED STATES - NIRS

The core shroud is a large stainless steel cylinder of circumferentially welded plates surrounding the reactor fuel core. The shroud provides for the core geometry of the fuel bundles. It is integral to providing a refloodable compartment in the event of a loss-of-coolant-accident. Extensive cracking of circumferential welds on the core shroud has been discovered in a growing number of U.S. and foreign BWRs. A lateral shift along circumferential cracks at the welds by as little as 1/8 inch can result in the misalignment of the fuel and the inability to insert the control rods coupled with loss of fuel core cooling capability. This scenario can result in a core melt accident. A German utility operating a GE BWR where extensive core shroud cracking was identified estimated the cost of replacement at $65 million dollars. The Wuergassen reactor, Germany's oldest boiling water reactor, was closed in 1995 after wary German nuclear regulators rejected a plan to repair rather than replace the reactor's cracked core shroud.

The Atomic Energy Society of Japan, said Thursday that melted nuclear fuel in the Nos. 1 to 3 reactors of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant was in a cooling state after forming into small particles that have settled at the bottom of pressure vessels.

....

The committee said the fuel rods in the Nos. 1 to 3 reactors were damaged and had partly melted. The committee has presumed that the melted nuclear fuel formed into particles measuring several millimeters or less after coming into contact with cooling water. The particles then settled on fuel rod support plates and at the bottom of the pressure vessels and are in a cooling state, it said. The assumption is consistent with the fact that water temperatures in the lower part of the pressure vessels are low.

"The contaminated water that leaked into the turbine buildings also is believed to contain particles of melted fuel," Takashi Sawada, deputy chairman of the AESJ, explained.

Other experts believe the melted fuel became a magmatic lump with a core temperature in excess of 2,000 C, which later settled on the bottom of the pressure vessels. However, the committee considers there is no danger of intense heat from the melted fuel destroying the pressure vessels. The committee also said it was unlikely that an explosion would occur and cause a large volume of radioactivity to be released from the reactors and nuclear fuel temporary storage pools.

Many countries have grown frustrated with and distrustful of the Japanese government for its poor handling of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant crisis and its failure to disclose relevant information after the earthquake and tsunami of March 11. What countermeasures will Japan take against tsunami in the future? Also, we need to know the exact details of what's happening with the reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant. These were just a couple of the grueling questions thrown at the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency's Deputy Director General for Nuclear Safety, Koichiro Nakamura, at a small-group session of a review meeting for contracting parties to the Convention on Nuclear Safety in Vienna on April 6.

The session was held to check Japan's compliance with the terms of the treaty. In addition to representatives from the group's 12 member countries, about 200 international representatives and experts attended--an unusually large number. According to some participants, Japan failed to respond clearly to questions and initially described the situation at the nuclear plant as under control. This remark was later corrected to "We're trying to control it," and "We don't know [exactly what is happening inside the nuclear reactors]."

"I doubt any of the foreign participants were satisfied with Japan's explanation," said a visibly disappointed European diplomat. A Russian expert was more critical, saying: "If nuclear plants are built on the coast, it's foreseeable that a major tsunami could occur. Despite being a technologically advanced nation, Japan has no robots that can be used at nuclear plants!"

When the worst earthquake in Japan's history and the subsequent tsunami knocked out all power in the city of Ishinomaki in Miyagi Prefecture, editors at the Ishinomaki Hibi Shimbun, the city's daily newspaper, printed news of the disaster the only way they could: by pen and paper.

For six consecutive days after the twin disasters, reporters used flashlights and marker pens to write their stories on poster-size paper and posted the "newspapers" at the entrances of relief centers around the city. Six staff members collected stories, while three spent an hour and a half each day writing the newspapers by hand.

The Newseum has acquired seven of the originals for its permanent collection of historic newspapers, some of which will be featured in a future exhibit in the Time Warner World News Gallery. The newspapers are a powerful testament to the timeless human need to know and to journalists' commitment to providing that information.

The operator of the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says the level of highly radioactive water in a tunnel of the No. 2 reactor has been rising.

Contaminated water in the plant's facilities is hampering efforts to restore reactor cooling systems. Leakages of such water into the ocean and the ground are also raising concern.

Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, finished transferring part of the wastewater -- about 660 tons -- from the tunnel to a condenser in a turbine building on Wednesday.

The transfer lowered the water level in the tunnel by 8 centimeters, but it began rising again, exceeding the previous level by 2.5 centimeters as of Saturday morning.

The accumulated radiation level in Namie, 30 kilometers from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, in the three weeks through Friday stood at 17,010 microsieverts, according to a tally released by the science ministry Saturday.

The accumulated levels during the period starting March 23 stood at 9,850 microsieverts in Iitate and 495 microsieverts in Minamisoma, both near the plant, it said. The readings compare with the level of 1,000 microsieverts that ordinary people in Japan can expect to be exposed to over one year.

The level of radioactive substances in seawater increased sharply overnight inside a containment fence installed near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Saturday.

The utility said the rise suggested that the fence is helping to curb the spread of contaminated water, but the government's Nuclear Industrial and Safety Agency remained cautious, citing the possibility that radioactive water could still be seeping from the complex.

The company said the level of radioactive iodine rose Saturday morning to 260 becquerels per cubic centimeter in seawater inside the fence near an intake leading to the No. 2 reactor.

The figure, 6,500 times the legal limit, was around six times the 42 becquerels detected the previous day, the company said, adding the reading of radioactive cesium had also jumped by four times.

TEPCO also said it plans on Sunday or later to throw sandbags containing zeolite, a mineral that absorbs radioactive materials, into the sea near intakes leading to the Nos. 1, 2 and 3 reactors to reduce the levels of contamination.

The Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan has failed to send designated experts to Fukushima Prefecture to look into the crisis at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant even though a national disaster-preparedness plan requires it to do so, many of the experts said Saturday.

A commission spokesperson said problems following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami such as blackouts had discouraged it from sending any experts to Fukushima Prefecture, but many of the specialists and government officials questioned the claim.

The commission designates 40 nuclear accident experts including university professors and senior officials of relevant institutions as well as five others as members of its panel on emergency technical advice.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. is considering installing circulating water cooling systems for nuclear reactors and spent fuel storage pools outside the reactor buildings at its crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, sources familiar with the matter said Saturday.

The new systems would cool nuclear fuel inside the reactors and spent fuel pools in a stable manner. They would involve heat exchangers and circulation pumps to drain reactor coolant water from the containment buildings, cooling it with seawater and then sending it back to the reactors, the sources said.

TEPCO appears to have already placed orders for dozens of gasketed plate heat exchangers -- each measuring 3 meters high, 1 meter wide and 2 meters long -- for such systems, the sources said.

The existing circulating water cooling systems at the plant were crippled by the March 11 earthquake and ensuing tsunami.

The European Commission has advised European ports to check radiation levels on ships and cargoes arriving from Japan to see whether they exceed a new limit.

In an announcement on Friday, it suggested a new limit of 0.2 microsieverts per hour above the normal level, which is 0.1 microsievert per hour.

The announcement says if port authorities detect radiation levels above the limit, the relevant government should inform the Commission and the ship in question should be thoroughly washed.

The announcement came a day after the first ship to leave Japan since the start of the nuclear crisis docked in the Dutch port of Rotterdam.

Smoke rose briefly from a control panel at a nuclear power plant in Niigata Prefecture on the Sea of Japan coast Saturday, the operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said.

No one was injured in the 7:45 p.m. incident that occurred during the checking of water purification equipment

A secret plan to dismantle Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), the operator of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, is circulating within the government. The proposal, which is associated with a faction of bureaucrats who have long supported liberalization of Japan's power industry, envisages the passing of a special measures law that would put the company under close government supervision before eventually bankrupting it and completely restructuring its remnants.

There are also proposals to smash the company's powerful influence on politicians and the mass media and force executives to give all their pay and severance settlements to victims of the earthquake. However, a rival faction in the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy (ANRE) and politicians with links to the power industry may try to fight or emasculate the radical proposals.

Sources said internal government discussions about how to handle TEPCO began in earnest around March 28, as it became clear that trillions of yen would be required just to compensate residents of Fukushima Prefecture affected by the nuclear disaster. The plan to dismantle the firm was being circulated by the end of the month. At its center is a special measures bill placing TEPCO under government supervision and paving the way to pulling it apart.

A former ANRE official who supports the plan said: "The special measures law will be necessary when we consider the need for comprehensive reform of TEPCO's management, including the establishment of a third-party organ to certify compensation decisions, a way to come up with the funds to pay compensation, and the separation of the company's nuclear energy department."

Perhaps this has something to do with the calls for PM Kan to step down? At least some in Japan know what bankruptcy is and when it is appropriate.

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

For the rest of the photo, go here.

Here's the video.

Workers were firing water into the pond from a distance in an effort to prevent the fuel from overheating and releasing radioactive contaminants, but fluid collecting in an adjacent flood control container triggered an incorrect warning that the pond had been filled. Personnel halted water transfers to the pool for a number of days in response to the warning, allowing heat and radiation levels to increase even though the fuel was thought to have remained submerged, Japanese Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency Deputy Director General Hidehiko Nishiyama said. Water spraying began again on Wednesday.

The operator of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has issued a schedule for putting the crisis under control in 6 to 9 months.

The chairman of Tokyo Electric Power Company, Tsunehisa Katsumata, explained the plan at a news conference on Sunday.

The utility firm said a two-phase process is scheduled.
In the first stage over the next 3 months, it will build new cooling systems outside the Number 1 and 3 reactor buildings to cool down the nuclear fuel, and to ensure that radiation levels around the plant continue to decline.

The first nuclear power plant accident in Fukushima, 17, TEPCO announced that it entered the reactor building of Unit 3 within the No. 1 and two US-made remote-controlled robot. Recovery for recycling cooling, radiation dose and temperature, humidity, oxygen concentration examined, in order to examine whether the workers put into the environment will be announced after the 18th to analyze the data.
　This robot from iRobot received an offer "Pakkubotto." The body length of 70 cm, 53 cm wide and 18 cm in height, the arm with a camera one meter 80 centimeters in length. It weighs 35 kg. One measure, used to monitor the working environment and one.

so two robots have gone in to take samples and they should produce results on the 18th. these tests are to see if the environment is safe enough for workers to enter

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

daiichi-assess.pdf Fukushima Daiichi Reactors Condition Assessment

For the first time after the accident at the Fukushima plant, TEPCO has released photos of the inside of the reactor buildings. Remote-controlled robots took the pictures on Sunday and Monday to check the interior of the buildings housing the No.1, No.2 and No.3 reactors.

This photo of the first floor of the No.3 reactor building shows a sheet-like object hanging from the ceiling and what appears to be equipment for moving the control rods. TEPCO says it cannot identify whether there are any pools of water on the floor.

The bright area at the innermost part of the building is an entrance for vehicles to bring in large machinery and materials.

The operator of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has begun transferring highly radioactive water from the No.2 reactor to a waste processing facility.

Ahead of the operation, Tokyo Electric Power Company, known as TEPCO, sealed cracks in the walls of the facility and ensured that other measures were in place to prevent contaminated water from leaking.

After the government's nuclear safety agency checked procedures and safety measures, TEPCO began the operation on Tuesday morning.

The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says it will examine the seabed off the facility to ensure that no plutonium has leaked into the ocean.

Tokyo Electric Power Company said on Monday it will conduct the inspection as plutonium is heavier than other radioactive materials and could have accumulated on the floor.

Plutonium is a radioactive substance that could cause lung cancer if inhaled.

The Japanese defense ministry has released video footage of a base camp for workers dealing with the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

The footage of an athletic training facility, about 20 kilometers from the plant, was made public on Monday.

Self-Defense Force officers and Tokyo Electric Power Company workers are lodging and training at the facility.

Footage taken last Tuesday shows SDF personnel using meters to measure radiation on a helicopter that flew over the nuclear plant.

The crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant will not have a total meltdown if the current cooling of its overheating reactors continues, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said Tuesday.

''Compared with before, should I say stabilizing, or it can be said at least that we have been able to do cooling to a certain degree. If we can continue this cooling, such a thing is unlikely,'' Edano said at a news conference, when asked about the possibility of a total meltdown of the plant.

Support for nuclear energy worldwide has fallen from 57 percent before Japan's nuclear disaster to 49 percent now, but supporters still outnumber opponents, according to a survey by WIN-Gallup International released Tuesday.

More than 90 percent of the March 11 earthquake-tsunami disaster victims in the most severely hit prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima died from drowning, while over 65 percent of them were aged 60 or older, the National Police Agency said Tuesday

The 9.0 earthquake in Japan -- the fourth most powerful quake ever recorded -- also caused an unusually severe and widespread shift in soil through liquefaction, a new study suggests.

Near coastlines, harbors and rivers, earthquakes can make the wet, sandy soil jiggle, turning it temporarily from a solid to a liquid state, a process known as liquefaction. Heavy sand and rock sinks, while water and lighter sand bubble to the surface. The slurry spreads, often toward the water, and the surface shifts.

Japan's liquefaction occurred over hundreds of miles, surprising even experienced engineers who are accustomed to seeing disaster sites, including from the recent earthquakes in Chile and New Zealand.

A top government official forced to retract his report that the Prime minister said Fukushima will be permanently uninhabitable. Milk from Fukushima allowed back on store shelves with record levels of radiation being detected in food from the area. After WHO warns real risk is radiation in food supply and Fukushima upgraded to same level as Chernobyl, WHO says there is no need for new public health measures.

... Apparently the comment made behind closed doors was not supposed to be made public and the official has been forced to retract the report and Prime Minister denies ever making the comment.

Edano apologizes over Kan's reported remark

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano has apologized to the public over media reports about the long-term inhabitability of areas around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

An adviser to the Cabinet, Kenichi Matsumoto, at first told reporters on Wednesday that the Prime Minister remarked that areas around the nuclear plant will be inhabitable over a long period. He later retracted his comment and the Prime Minister himself also denied making such a statement.

Tokyo Electric Power Company says radioactive debris and high humidity are hampering the investigation by robots at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

The company began using remote-controlled robots to explore the first three reactor buildings on Sunday and Monday.

At the Number 2 reactor building, the robot's camera lens was instantly clouded by high humidity.

TEPCO officials think that the steam is coming from the damaged section of the reactor's suppression pool.
But they have not found a way to resolve the problem as the steam could be highly toxic.

Dr. Yuri Bandazhevsky was the director of the Gomel Medical Institute in Belarus in 1990 when he began looking at the health problems of children in contaminated areas. There are regions in Belarus where only 10% of the children are healthy. In areas with high levels of cesium 137, the birth rates are very low and children living there have a variety of chronic illnesses.

Bandazhevsky found a high correlation between cesium levels and childhood diseases. His wife, Galena, was a pediatrician and she was seeing many children with strange illnesses, like eight year-olds with heart attacks. When Bandazhevsky made public statements about the diseases being linked to Chernobyl fallout, he was arrested, accused of taking bribes and sentenced to eight years hard labor.

Resisting the temptation to quote the whole article. Must-read.

She mentions a Harvard study from 2005
Autopsy on an Empire: Understanding Mortality in Russia and the Former Soviet Union

Male life expectancy at birth fell by over six years in Russia between 1989 and 1994. Many other countries of the former Soviet Union saw similar declines, and female life expectancy fell as well. Using cross-country and Russian household survey data, we assess six possible explanations for this upsurge in mortality. Most find little support in the data: the deterioration of the health care system, changes in diet and obesity, and material deprivation fail to explain the increase in mortality rates. The two factors that do appear to be important are alcohol consumption, especially as it relates to external causes of death (homicide, suicide, and accidents) and stress associated with a poor outlook for the future. However, a large residual remains to be explained.

... which, amazingly, makes no reference at all to Chernobyl.

[Footnote : I found the article because I have a Google alert on "Chernobyl Bandazhevsky". It fires about once a year... Amazingly.]

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II}

With reactors at two nuclear power plants out of commission, Fukushima Prefecture is almost certain to lose the 4.47 billion yen in nuclear fuel tax from Tokyo Electric Power Co. that the prefecture has included in its initial budget for fiscal 2011.

Nuclear fuel tax is levied on TEPCO, operator of the nuclear power plants, when the company places nuclear fuel rods in reactors during regular inspections.

However, as TEPCO cannot transfer nuclear fuel rods to or from the reactors at its Fukushima Nos. 1 and 2 plants due to the nuclear crisis, the prefecture expects the tax revenue will be zero.

The burden of paying trillions of yen in compensation to people from areas near the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant will likely be shared by taxpayers and other electricity companies as well as the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co. A draft government plan, obtained by The Asahi Shimbun April 20, proposes that TEPCO should remain under private ownership and shoulder the main responsibility for paying the compensation, but that a new public-private agency would bankroll and supervise it.

Under the draft plan, TEPCO will at first use its own money to pay compensation. It will have recourse to between 120 billion yen ($1.5 billion) and 240 billion yen from an insurance-like contract with the government agreed before the disaster under the law on compensation for damage from nuclear accidents.

But that money is expected to fall far short of the final compensation bill, and taxpayers' money is likely to be used to help fund the payouts. If TEPCO's liabilities exceed its assets, the company will ask the government for "special assistance," the plan says.

....

A newly established task force made up of Cabinet ministers will decide whether to give that assistance. If they give the go-ahead, TEPCO will be put under government supervision for as long as it is in receipt of assistance. All of its business plans will have to be approved by the government. A new organization will be set up to provide the special assistance funds, according to the draft plan. It will be established under a new statute and will receive funding from Japan's other major electric power companies.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. will build a seawall to protect its biggest atomic power station from a tsunami like the one that knocked out its Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant, causing the worst nuclear crisis in 25 years.

Japan's biggest power company, known as Tepco, plans to construct a wall to a height of 15 meters (50 feet) above sea level off the coast of its Kashiwazaki Kariwa plant northwest of Tokyo, spokeswoman Ai Tanaka said by phone. Three of seven reactors remain shut at the station after an earthquake in 2007 caused radiation leaks.

....

Tepco said last week it wants to get approvals to restart the remaining idled reactors at the Kashiwazaki plant, the world's biggest atomic power station, to meet potential shortfalls after losing generating capacity in the disaster.

Tepco has been criticized by the government for responding too slowly to the crisis that unfolded at Fukushima after the tsunami washed ashore. The company also received criticism for the way it responded to the quake that hit near the Kashiwazaki station in 2007. Kashiwazaki should be shut permanently, a group of scientists said one month after the 6.6-magnitude quake hit the area.

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission says conditions at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant are "static but fragile" in its latest assessment of the nuclear emergency.

The Commission compiled the report as of April 15th, along with the US Energy Department and other nuclear organizations.

The report suggests that ongoing operations to feed the reactors with water could be affected by the occurrence of more aftershocks.

It recommends a more diversified and redundant feeding system, along with the automation of operations involving large cranes and other equipment to douse the reactors with water.

The report estimates that 67 percent of nuclear fuel has been damaged at reactor No.1, 44 percent at reactor No.2 and 30 percent at reactor No.3.

Two Japanese residents of the disaster-stricken northeast are included in Time magazine's annual list of the world's 100 most influential people.

The weekly US news magazine announced this year's list on Thursday.

Katsunobu Sakurai is the mayor of Minamisoma City in Fukushima Prefecture, located north of the damaged nuclear power plant.

The Japanese government has announced the official expansion of the evacuation zone around the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to selected areas beyond the existing 20-kilometer radius. Residents of the new areas are being asked to evacuate by the end of May.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said on Friday that the government made the designation since residents there could be exposed to cumulative radiation levels of 20 millisieverts or more per year if they stay.

The 5 new municipalities are located to the northwest of the plant and are more than 20 kilometers from it.

Tobacco farmers in Fukushima Prefecture are seeking damages from Tokyo Electric Power Company after losing this year's crop due to radiation leaks from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

The head of a national association of tobacco growers, Shoji Terai, made the request at a meeting with TEPCO officials on Friday.

Terai said farmers in Fukushima are at a loss about how to earn a living after making the voluntary decision to give up growing this year.

See the subthread in the Salon Tuesday, and this map:

The exclusion zone is 30 km around Chernobyl, which practically corresponds to what Proskura is saying in your citation. (√(2600/3.14) = 29). But the map shows that there are uncontaminated (green) areas within the exclusion zone, and that heavily contaminated areas continue beyond it. The Belarus border can be seen top left, and the contamination levels are displayed across it. So it would be interesting to have the complete map this Ukraine section was taken from.

NHK - TEPCO plans wage cuts to fund damage payments  

The operator of the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is to cut annual salaries of its workers by around 20 percent as part of efforts to fund compensation payments over the nuclear accident.

The Tokyo Electric Power Company has reportedly informed its labor union of the plan.  

Earlier, hydrogen explosions at the plant and the spread of radioactive materials over a wide area had created an image in the international community of Japan being left powerless, unable to control a runaway nuclear power plant. The Kan administration feared that Japan would be abandoned by the rest of the world, and hoped the helicopter mission would help the country overcome the negative images.

"The release of water was a display to the U.S. We were showing them how serious Japan was," a high-ranking Japanese government official commented.  

Wind power can generate electricity up to that produced by 40 nuclear reactors, the Environment Ministry said April 21. The ministry calculated the amount of electricity that can be produced using natural energy sources in Japan. The result: Wind theoretically shows a significantly greater likelihood of generating power across the country compared with other natural energy sources.

The results show that even on the assumption that windmills are not continuously operational, they still have the capacity to produce electric energy equivalent to that generated by 40 nuclear reactors. Japan has 54 commercial reactors, generating nearly 30 percent of the country's electricity output.

In the disaster-stricken Tohoku region, where wind is generally strong, it is estimated that wind power could produce the same amount of electricity as that generated by three to 11 nuclear reactors, according to the ministry. The ministry plans to propose the introduction of wind power generation and other natural energy source power generation as part of its rebuilding efforts in the aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake.

Japanese researchers who study space agriculture believe growing sunflowers will remove radioactive cesium from contaminated soil around the Fukushima No.1 nuclear power plant, and are planning a project to plant as many of the yellow flowers as possible this year. They have invited people to sow sunflower seeds near the Fukushima Prefecture power station, hoping the sunflower will become a symbol of recovery in the areas affected by the nuclear crisis. After the sunflowers are harvested, they will be decomposed with bacteria, according to a plan by a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency group led by Prof. Masamichi Yamashita.

After the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, sunflowers and rape blossoms were used to decontaminate soil in Ukraine. Radioactive cesium is similar to kalium, a commonly used fertilizer. If kalium is not present, sunflowers will absorb cesium instead.

If the harvested sunflowers are disposed of by burning them, radioactive cesium could be dispersed through smoke, which is why the researchers are considering using hyperthermophilic aerobic bacteria--used to produce compost--to decompose the plants. The decomposing process will reduce the sunflowers to about 1 percent of their previous volume, which will slash the amount of radioactive waste that needs to be dealt with.

 Tokyo Electric Power Company has disclosed a map of radiation levels at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

The utility plans to urgently remove radioactive rubble, and the map will help to protect workers from unnecessary exposure to radiation.

TEPCO began making the map in late March, and has posted copies in the plant's buildings.

The map shows radiation levels that controllers measured around the first 4 reactors before the start of the working day.

Radiation levels around the Number 3 reactor building, which was damaged by a powerful hydrogen explosion, are higher than in other locations, and 300 millisieverts per hour of radiation was detected in debris on a nearby mountainside.

Two robots that were used to search in the sea for people missing following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami did not find any bodies in five days of operations through Saturday in Pacific coastal waters off northeastern Japan, a research group involved with the project said Sunday.

I wonder how much measurement is happening on a regular basis at various depths and distances out in the ocean (including the seabed). Until proven otherwise, i'm going on the assumption that things are "stable" because tons of water are continually dousing reactors and pools. And it's got to be running into the ocean, no matter what they've tried to stop it. Doesn't it?

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

Data released by the government indicates radioactive material was leaking into the atmosphere from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in early April in greater quantities than previously estimated.

Radioactive material was being released into the atmosphere from the plant at an estimated rate of 154 terabecquerels per day as of April 5, according to data released by the Cabinet Office's Nuclear Safety Commission on Saturday.

The NSC previously estimated radiation leakage on April 5 at "less than 1 terabecquerel per hour."

Iodine-131 and cesium-137 were released into the atmosphere that day at the estimated rates of 0.69 terabecquerel per hour and 0.14 terabecquerel per hour, respectively, the NSC said.

Emissions are converted into iodine-131 equivalents for assessment on the international nuclear event scale (INES), to arrive at the total 154 terabecquerels per day, the nuclear safety watchdog said

The new map incorporates many of the changes requests by readers, while new features include a time series visualization of regional effects, a local site map, selected news reports, and data up through March 30th. Radiation by distance has also been updated to show several trend lines at different dates.

The operator of the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is carefully monitoring the situation at the Number 4 spent fuel pool, where the water temperature is rising despite increased injections of cooling water.

Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, says it will inject 210 tons of water into the pool on Monday, after finding on Sunday evening that the temperature in the pool had risen to 81 degrees Celsius.

The utility firm had earlier limited the amount of water being injected into the pool to 70 tons a day, saying the weight of the water could weaken the reactor building, which was already damaged in last month's hydrogen explosion.

On Friday, TEPCO found that the pool's temperature had reached 91 degrees, so it began injecting 2 to 3 times the amount of water.