Nuclear power and Japan.

[John Dolva]

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/nuclear/

''We need an energy system that can fight climate change, based on renewable energy and energy efficiency. Nuclear power already delivers less energy globally than renewable energy, and the share will continue to decrease in the coming years.

Despite what the nuclear industry tells us, building enough nuclear power stations to make a meaningful reduction in greenhouse gas emissions would cost trillions of dollars, create tens of thousands of tons of lethal high-level radioactive waste, contribute to further proliferation of nuclear weapons materials, and result in a Chernobyl-scale accident once every decade. Perhaps most significantly, it will squander the resources necessary to implement meaningful climate change solutions. (Briefing: Climate change - Nuclear not the answer.) ... ''

[John Dolva]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/24/us-japan-nuclear-idUSTRE75N18A20110624

FUKUSHIMA, Japan | Fri Jun 24, 2011 9:19am EDT

FUKUSHIMA, Japan (Reuters) - A decade and a half before it blew apart in a hydrogen blast that punctuated the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, the No. 3 reactor at the Fukushima nuclear power plant was the scene of an earlier safety crisis.

Then, as now, a small army of transient workers was put to work to try to stem the damage at the oldest nuclear reactor run by Japan's largest utility.

At the time, workers were racing to finish an unprecedented repair to address a dangerous defect: cracks in the drum-like steel assembly known as the "shroud" surrounding the radioactive core of the reactor.

But in 1997, the effort to save the 21-year-old reactor from being scrapped at a large loss to its operator, Tokyo Electric, also included a quiet effort to skirt Japan's safety rules: foreign workers were brought in for the most dangerous jobs, a manager of the project said.

"It's not well known, but I know what happened," Kazunori Fujii, who managed part of the shroud replacement in 1997, told Reuters. "What we did would not have been allowed under Japanese safety standards."

The previously undisclosed hiring of welders from the United States and Southeast Asia underscores the way Tokyo Electric, a powerful monopoly with deep political connections in Japan, outsourced its riskiest work and developed a lax safety culture in the years leading to the Fukushima disaster, experts say.

A 9.0 earthquake on March 11 triggered a 15-meter tsunami that smashed into the seaside Fukushima Daiichi plant and set off a series of events that caused its reactors to start melting down.

Hydrogen explosions scattered debris across the complex and sent up a plume of radioactive steam that forced the evacuation of more than 80,000 residents near the plant, about 240 km (150 miles) northeast of Tokyo. Enough radioactive water to fill 40 Olympic swimming pools has also been collected at the plant and threatens to leak into the groundwater.

The repeated failures that have dogged Tokyo Electric in the three months the Fukushima plant has been in crisis have undercut confidence in the response to the disaster and dismayed outside experts, given corporate Japan's reputation for relentless organization.

Hastily hired workers were sent into the plant without radiation meters. Two splashed into radioactive water wearing street shoes because rubber boots were not available. Even now, few have been given training on radiation risks that meets international standards, according to their accounts and the evaluation of experts.

The workers who stayed on to try to stabilize the plant in the darkest hours after March 11 were lauded as the "Fukushima 50" for their selflessness. But behind the heroism is a legacy of Japanese nuclear workers facing hazards with little oversight, according to interviews with more than two dozen current and former nuclear workers, doctors and others.

Since the start of the nuclear boom in the 1970s, Japan's utilities have relied on temporary workers for maintenance and plant repair jobs, the experts said. They were often paid in cash with little training and no follow-up health screening.

This practice has eroded the ability of nuclear plant operators to manage the massive risks workers now face and prompted calls for the Japanese government to take over the Fukushima clean-up effort.

Although almost 9,000 workers have been involved in work around the mangled reactors, Tokyo Electric did not have a Japan-made robot capable of monitoring radiation inside the reactors until this week. That job was left to workers, reflecting the industry's reliance on cheap labor, critics say.

"I can only think that to the power companies, contract workers are just disposable pieces of equipment," said Kunio Horie, who worked at nuclear plants, including Fukushima Daiichi, in the late 1970s and wrote about his experience in a book "Nuclear Gypsy."

Tokyo Electric said this week it cannot find 69 of the more than 3,600 workers who were brought in to Fukushima just after the disaster because their names were never recorded. Others were identified by Tepco in accident reports only by initials: "A-san" or "B-san."

Makoto Akashi, executive director at the National Institute of Radiological Sciences near Tokyo, said he was shocked to learn Tokyo Electric had not screened some of the earliest workers for radiation inside their bodies until June while others had to share monitors to measure external radiation.

That means health risks for workers - and future costs - will be difficult to estimate.

"We have to admit that we didn't have an adequate system for checking radiation exposure," said Goshi Hosono, an official appointed by Prime Minister Naoto Kan to coordinate the response to the crisis.

'BROAD IS THE ROAD THAT LEADS TO DESTRUCTION'

Fujii, who devoted his career to building Japanese nuclear power plants as a manager with IHI Corporation, was troubled by what he saw at Fukushima in 1997.

Now 72, he remembers falling for "the romance of nuclear power" as a student at Tokyo's Rikkyo University in the 1960s. "The idea that you could take a substance small enough to fit into a tea cup and produce almost infinite power seemed almost like a dream" he said.

He had asked to oversee part of the job at Fukushima as the last big assignment of his career. He threw himself into the work, heading into the reactor for inspections. "I had a sense of mission," he said.

As he watched a group of Americans at work in the reactor one day, Fujii jotted down a Bible verse in his diary that captured his angst: "Wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction and many enter through it."

The basis for nuclear safety regulation is the assumption that cancers, including leukemia, can be caused years later by exposure to relatively small amounts of radiation, far below the level that would cause immediate sickness. In normal operations, international nuclear workers are limited to an average exposure of 20 millisieverts per year, about 10 times natural background radiation levels.

At Fukushima in 1997, Japanese safety rules were applied in a way that set very low radiation exposure limits on a daily basis, Fujii said. That was a prudent step, safety experts say, but it severely limited what Japanese workers could do on a single shift and increased costs.

The workaround was to bring in foreign workers who would absorb a full-year's allowable dose of radiation of between 20 millisieverts and 25 millisieverts in just a few days.

"We brought in workers from Southeast Asia and Saudi Arabia who had experience building oil tankers. They took a heavier dose of radiation than Japanese workers could have," said Fujii, adding that American workers were also hired.

Tokyo Electric would admit five years later it had hid evidence of the extent of the defect in the shroud from regulators. That may have added to the pressure to finish the job quickly. When new cracks were found, they were fixed without a report to regulators, according to disclosures made in 2002

It is not clear if the radiation doses for the foreign workers were recorded on an individual basis or if they have faced any heath problems. Tepco said it had no access to the worker records kept by its subcontractors. IHI said it had no record of the hiring of the foreign workers. Toshiba, another major contractor, also said it could not confirm that foreign workers were hired.

Hosono, the government official overseeing the response to the disaster, said he was not aware of foreign workers being brought in to do repair work in the past and they would not be sent in now.

Now retired outside Tokyo, Fujii said he has come to see nuclear power as an "imperfect technology."

"This is an unfortunate thing to say, but the nuclear industry has long relied on people at the lowest level of Japanese society," he said.

PAY-BY-THE-DAY

Since the late 1960s, the Kamagasaki neighborhood of Osaka has been a dumping ground for men battling drug and alcohol addiction, ex-convicts, and men looking for a construction job with few questions. It has also been a hiring spot for Japan's nuclear industry for decades.

"Kamagasaki is a place that companies have always come for workers that they can use and then throw away," said Hiroshi Inagaki, a labor activist.

The nearby Lawson's store has a sign on its bathroom door warning that anyone trying to flush a used syringe down the toilet will be prosecuted. Peddlers sell scavenged trash, including used shoes and rice cookers. A pair of yakuza enforcers in black shirts and jeans walks the street to collect loans.

The center of Kamagasaki is an office that connects day laborers with the small construction firms that roll up before dawn in vans and minibuses.

Within a week after the Fukushima disaster, Tepco had engaged Japan's biggest construction and engineering companies to run the job of trying to bring the plant under control. They in turned hired smaller firms, over 600 of them. That cascade brought the first job offers to Kamagasaki by mid-March.

One hiring notice sought a truck driver for Miyagi, one of the prefectures hit hard by the tsunami. But when an Osaka day laborer in his 60s accepted the job, he was sent instead to Fukushima where he was put to work handling water to cool the No. 5 reactor.

The man, who did not want to be identified, was paid the equivalent of about $300 a day, twice what he was first promised. But he was only issued a radiation meter on his fourth day. Inagaki said the man was seeking a financial settlement from Tokyo Electric. "We think what happened here is illegal," he said.

Nearby, several men waiting to be hired in Kamagasaki said they had experience working at nuclear plants.

A 58-year-old former member of Japan's Self Defense Forces from southern Japan who asked to be identified only by his nickname, Jumbo, said he had worked at Tokyo Electric's Kashiwazaki-Kariwa power plant for a two-month job. He knows others who have gone to Fukushima from the hiring line at Kamagasaki, he said.

"We've always had nuclear work here, and I would go again," he said.

THE ABANDONED SPA

In Iwaki, a town south of the Fukushima plant once known for a splashy Hawaiian-themed resort, the souvenir stands and coffee shops are closed or losing money. The drinking spots known as "snacks" are starting to come back as workers far from home seek the company of bar girls.

"It's becoming like an army base," said Shukuko Kuzumi, 63, who runs a cake shop across from the main rail station. "There are workers who come here knowing what the work is like, but I think there are many who don't."

Each morning, hired workers pile into buses and beat-up vans and set out from the nearly abandoned resort. More men in the standard-issue white work pajamas pour out of the shipping containers turned into temporary housing at the Hirono highway exit where residents have fled and weeds have overgrown the sidewalks.

They gather at a now abandoned soccer complex where Argentina's soccer team trained during the 2002 World Cup to get

briefed on the tasks for the shifts ahead. They then change into the gear many have come to dread: two or three pairs of gloves, full face masks, goggles and white protective suits. More than a dozen Fukushima workers have collapsed of heat stroke, and the rising heat weighs more heavily on the minds of workers than threat of radiation.

"I don't know how I'm going to make it if it gets much hotter than this," a heavyset, 36-year-old Tokyo man said as he stretched out at Hirono after a day of spraying a green resin around the plant to keep radioactive dust from spreading.

The risks from the radiation hotspots at Fukushima remain considerable. A vent of steam in the No. 1 reactor was found earlier this month to be radioactive enough to kill anyone standing near it for more than an hour.

Tokyo Electric has been given a sanction-free reprimand for its handling of radiation exposure at Fukushima. Nine workers have exceeded the emergency exposure limit of 250 millisieverts. Another 115 have exceeded 100 millisieverts of exposure. The two workers with the highest radiation readings topped 600 millisieverts of exposure.

For context, the largest study of nuclear workers to date by the International Agency for Research on Cancer found a risk of roughly two additional fatal cancers for every 100 people exposed to 100 millisieverts of radiation.

But several Fukushima workers say they have been told not to worry about health risks unless they top 100 or near 200 millisieverts of exposure in training by contractors.

Experts say that runs counter to international standards. The International Atomic Energy Agency requires workers in a nuclear emergency to give" informed consent" to the risks they face and that they understand danger exists at even low doses.

Tokyo Electric spokesman Junichi Matsumoto said the utility could not confirm what kind of training smaller firms were providing. "The subcontractors have a responsibility as well," he said. "I don't know what kind of briefing they are getting."

Kim Kearfott, a nuclear engineer and radiation health expert from the University of Michigan who toured Japan in May, said authorities needed to ensure that safety training was handled independently by outside experts.

"The potential for coercion and undue influence over a day laborer audience is high, especially when the training and consent are administered by those who control hiring and firing of workers," she said.

Tokyo Electric has been challenged before on its training. Mitsuaki Nagao, a plumber who had worked at three plants including Fukushima, said he was never briefed on radiation dangers, and would routinely use another worker's dosimeter to finish jobs. Some doctors worry that the same under-reporting of radiation could happen at Fukushima as well.

Nagao sued Tokyo Electric when he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a type of bone marrow cancer, in 2004. His lawsuit, one of two known worker cases against a Japanese utility, was rejected by a Tokyo court, which ruled no links had been proven between his radiation and his illness. He died in 2007.

Some doctors are urging Japan's government to set up a system of health monitoring for the thousands of workers streaming through Fukushima. Some also want to see a standard of care guaranteed.

"This is also a problem of economics," said Kristin Schrader-Frechette, a Notre Dame University professor and nuclear safety expert. "If Japan wants to know the true costs of nuclear power versus the alternatives, it needs to know what these health care costs are."

(Editing by Bill Tarrant)

[John Dolva]

This topic is turning into a bit of a time capsule of a struggle by the nuclear industry on the one hand and the truth on the other.

As such it can be seen as a micro study of media manipulation, doling out information piecemeal and in a contradictory format. At present it seems to be an attempt to rehabilitate nuclear power as a viable option with theme parks and even comix to propagate a falsehood, though some are using the opportunity to use similar method to support the message that nuclear energy is madness.

Interest Japanese Animation Fest Picks Nuclear Accident Theme

posted on 2011-06-27 13:15 AEST Tokyo's Laputa Int'l Animation Festival makes Fukushima accident this year's theme The Laputa International Animation Festival in Tokyo announced on Saturday that its theme this year will be the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident. The festival's 11th annual outing began accepting open submissions under the "Fukushima Animation" theme. Launched in 2000, the festival aims to uncover and foster new animation talent in Japan with screenings and workshops.

Tokyo and other parts of Japan have been undergoing scheduled power outages and conservation efforts since the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake disaster (Higashi Nihon Daishinsai) of March 11. At the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, staff members have been working to prevent the reactor fuel rods from melting after the cooling systems were damaged by the earthquake-induced tsunami.

Ryō Saitani, a festival organizer, manga creator, and a prominent anti-nuclear power activist, noted that the nuclear power industry have used manga to promote its safety, especially after the Chernobyl nuclear power accident in 1986. The festival organizers emphasize the threat of radiation in Tokyo from the Fukushima Daiichi plant, although the government and independent surveys have reported normal background radiation levels in Tokyo since the accident.

The fesitval is accepting (PDF format) animated shorts until the end of August. Both professionals and amateurs can enter two-dimensional, three-dimensional, hybrid, and computer animated entries.

Studio Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki mounted his own protest of nuclear power last week. (The Laputa International Animation Festival is named after the Laputa Asagaya theater in Tokyo and not after Miyazaki's Laputa: Castle in the Sky film.)

[John Dolva]

http://australianetworknews.com/stories/201106/3255104.htm

Japan's nuclear waste spreads through Pacific

PHOTO

A man undergoes radiation screening in Fukushima, Japan. [Reuters]

VIDEO from Australia Network News

Scientists say radioactive material could spread

Created: Tue, 28 Jun 2011 13:11:55 GMT+0800

VIDEO from Australia Network News

Cabinet reshuffle

Created: Tue, 28 Jun 2011 13:11:55 GMT+0800

Last Updated: 3 hours 50 seconds ago

Japanese scientists predict that radioactive material leaking from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant will spread 4,000 kilometres through the Pacific Ocean in the next year.

Japan's Atomic Energy Agency says the caesium contamination will also reach Hawaii in three years,

Then it will wash along the United States west coast in five years.

But the agency says by that time the caesium will not pose a threat to human health.

Fission

Caesium, with its isotope caesium-137, is formed as a product of nuclear fission.

Caesium-137 has a half-life of about 30.17 years.

It is quite chemically reactive and difficult to handle. Caesium salts are very soluble in water and this complicates its safe handling.

Meanwhile, a leak at the nuclear plant has forced workers to halt the pumping of decontaminated run-off water being used to cool reactors.

A spokesman from the operator, TEPCO, says engineers will check the system today.

It connects reactors with water purification facilities.

The hope is to restart it as soon as possible.

[John Dolva]

http://australianetw...106/3255104.htm

Japan's nuclear waste spreads through Pacific

PHOTO

A man undergoes radiation screening in Fukushima, Japan. [Reuters]

VIDEO from Australia Network News

Scientists say radioactive material could spread

Created: Tue, 28 Jun 2011 13:11:55 GMT+0800

VIDEO from Australia Network News

Cabinet reshuffle

Created: Tue, 28 Jun 2011 13:11:55 GMT+0800

Last Updated: 3 hours 50 seconds ago

Japanese scientists predict that radioactive material leaking from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant will spread 4,000 kilometres through the Pacific Ocean in the next year.

Japan's Atomic Energy Agency says the caesium contamination will also reach Hawaii in three years,

Then it will wash along the United States west coast in five years.

But the agency says by that time the caesium will not pose a threat to human health. *

Fission

Caesium, with its isotope caesium-137, is formed as a product of nuclear fission.

Caesium-137 has a half-life of about 30.17 years.

It is quite chemically reactive and difficult to handle. Caesium salts are very soluble in water and this complicates its safe handling.

Meanwhile, a leak at the nuclear plant has forced workers to halt the pumping of decontaminated run-off water being used to cool reactors.

A spokesman from the operator, TEPCO, says engineers will check the system today.

It connects reactors with water purification facilities.

The hope is to restart it as soon as possible.

* edit add forgetting that it will have entered the food chain

apart from the fact of it's 30 odd year half life

and that there are other lethal contaminants dispersed

and that rain is a carrier

and that variables in ocean currents

all make such a statement nonsensical, but hey, with the PR campaign in full swing, what else is to be expected...

Meanwhile everything is hunky-dory in Nebraska with just a minor blip in water containment and cooling...

Isn't nuclear power lovely? It can be such a disaster for the earth but when it comes to dough no matter how debilitating (to economies as well) it needs continual rehabilitation with lies and halftruths to keep the profits rolling in.

IMO the worlds population should take out a global class action suit, as well as a few more Seattle type battles (WTO) to rid humanity of this killer and those who promote it.

Edited June 28, 2011 by John Dolva

[John Dolva]

http://news.indialocals.com/read/2011/06/29/ZwuxMQt2BGVlKmD2BGL5AN==/full-story-japan-s-tepco-urged-to-end-nuclear-power?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Science News

Japan's Tepco urged to end nuclear power

Published: June 28, 2011 at 6:20 PM

Comments (0)

Email

Print

Listen

TOKYO, June 28 (UPI) -- Angry shareholder say Japan's Tokyo Electric Power Co. should abandon nuclear energy in the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear crisis.

A motion for company to give up on nuclear was put forward at the company's first annual shareholders meeting since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami caused a meltdown at three of the power generating plant's six reactors, but was defeated, the BBC reported Tuesday.

Tepco shares have fallen 85 percent since the tsunami damaged the Fukushima plant, and the company could face paying compensation of almost $100 billion following radiation leaks from the damaged reactors as 80,000 residents living close to the plant have been forced to abandon their properties.

"Japan has a lot of earthquakes and after this accident I just don't think there is such a thing as safe nuclear power here," one shareholder, Takako Kameoka, said.

Thousands of those present at the shareholders meeting supported the motion to abandon nuclear power, but the institutional shareholders that own most of the stock were not convinced and the motion was defeated, the BBC reported.

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2011/06/28/Japans-Tepco-urged-to-end-nuclear-power/UPI-79951309299644/#ixzz1QcgzQO4J

http://news.lucaswhitefieldhixson.com/2011/06/over-80-of-japanese-nation-want-all-54.html

No wonder the media isn't covering this. Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and soon Japan?

From Kyodo News -

4 out of 5 want nuclear reactors scrapped in Japan

TOKYO, June 19, Kyodo

More than four out of five Japanese want the nation's 54 nuclear reactors to be decommissioned either immediately or gradually in the wake of the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, a poll reported by the Tokyo Shimbun daily showed Sunday.

Only 14 percent said the reactors should continue operations while 82 percent backed their decommissioning, showing a marked lack of confidence in the nation's atomic energy policy, according to the June 11-12 poll.

In a breakdown, a total of 54 percent of respondents said the reactors should be decommissioned ''while taking into account the power supply-and-demand situation,'' followed by 19 percent who want decommissioning to ''start with ones undergoing periodic checks'' and 9 percent who called for immediate scrapping of nuclear plants.

http://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/atomicage/2011/06/28/38-years-of-nuke-profit-up-in-smoke-via-the-japan-times-online/

38 years of nuke profit up in smoke? via The Japan Times online

Tokyo Electric Power Co. faces a potential damages bill exceeding its profits from nuclear power generation over a 38-year period beginning in 1970, the year it opened the crisis-hit Fukushima No. 1 plant, according to a recent study.

Kenichi Oshima, an environmental economist and professor at Kyoto-based Ritsumeikan University, estimates that Tepco in that time earned just less than ¥4 trillion, possibly equal to or less than the amount it must pay farmers, fishermen, evacuees and others affected by the nuclear crisis.

Oshima also found that the cost of nuclear power generation is higher in Japan than that of hydraulic and thermal power, contrary to a widely disseminated government estimate.

Continue reading at 38 years of nuke profit up in smoke?(link)

-----

A further question is who actually pays in the end? TEPCO? Taxpayers?

Without doubt, in global health terms, the world and its diverse life forms pay, and will continue to pay for a long time. This is what makes this issue so critical to the survival of the earth as we know it.

How many accidents will it take before profit takes a back seat?

[John Dolva]

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110629p2a00m0na018000c.html

Kan rumored to call snap election with energy policy as focal issue

Japanese Prime Minister Nato Kan speaks during a press conference in Tokyo, Friday, April 22, 2011. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara) Speculations have been mounting that Prime Minister Naoto Kan may dissolve the House of Representatives for a snap general election, with the focal issue set on the nation's energy policy in the wake of the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant.

At the outset of a joint meeting of Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) members of both houses of the Diet on June 28, Kan stressed the importance of energy issues, saying, "Where Japan is going to take its energy policy will be the top issue in the next national election."

Earlier on June 27, Kan did not rule out the possibility of dissolving the lower house if energy-related bills, including a bill to oblige utilities to purchase electricity generated by renewal energy at fixed prices, did not pass the Diet.

These moves have prompted members of both the ruling and opposition parties to speculate that the prime minister may dissolve the lower chamber for a general election with the abandonment of nuclear power generation at stake.

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/06/29/radiation-in-our-food/

Radiation in Our Food

By Chris Kilham

Published June 29, 2011

| FoxNews.com

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments

Though the horrendous tsunami that hit Japan on March 12, 2011 seems like old news in the midst of today’s headlines, the crippled nuclear power plants at Fukishima Daichi continue to spew radiation into water, air and soil, with no end in sight.

Even as thousands of Japanese workers struggle to contain the ongoing nuclear disaster, low levels of radiation from those power plants have been detected in foods in the United States. Milk, fruits and vegetables show trace amounts of radioactive isotopes from the Fukushima Daichi power plants, and the media appears to be paying scant attention, if any attention at all. It is as if the problem only involves Japan, not the vast Pacific Ocean, into which highly radioactive water has poured by the dozens of tons, and not into air currents and rainwater that carry radiation to U.S. soil and to the rest of the world. And while both Switzerland and Germany have come out against any further nuclear development, the U.S. the nuclear power industry continues as usual, with aging and crumbling power plants receiving extended operating licenses from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, as though it can’t happen here. But it is happening here, on your dinner plate...

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/06/29/radiation-in-our-food/#ixzz1QhaXkzEX

http://crisisjones.wordpress.com/2011/06/29/topic-global-consequences-of-japanese-quake-shouldnt-that-read-global-consequences-of-nuclear-power-plants/

Radiation registered in tea at Japan’s Shizuoka factory

Topic: Global consequences of Japanese quake

Fukushima nuclear power plant

© RIA Novosti

06:37 10/06/2011

• • An increased level of radioactive cesium was registered in tea produced at a factory in Japan’s Shizuoka City, which is located some 300 km (186.4 miles) from the crippled

Fukushima nuclear power plant

• , NHK channel reported.

A tea distributor in Japan’s capital of Tokyo has already notified Shizuoka Prefecture, which is one of the most famous tea producing areas in the country, that it discovered radiation levels exceeding the norms in the product.

“The prefectural government confirmed the contamination on Thursday, detecting 679 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive cesium. The legal limit is 500 becquerels,” NHK said.

The factory stopped shipping tea upon the orders from Shizuoka Prefecture, according to the NHK.

Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was seriously damaged by a powerful earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan on March 11.

Fukushima’s operator has since been struggling to stop radioactive leaks from the plant’s crippled reactors. Radioactive elements have been found in the water, air and food products in some parts of Japan.

MOSCOW, June 10 (RIA Novosti

[John Dolva]

http://www.alternet.org/environment/151470/nukes_at_risk_as_floods_and_fires_from_extreme_weather_make_us_vulnerable/?page=2

page 2 :

Nukes at Risk as Floods and Fires From Extreme Weather Make Us Vulnerable

Extreme weather may be no match for our aging nuclear fleet and that's bad news millions of Americans who live nearby.

Continued from previous page

Advertisement

The fact that the nuclear facility rests atop a fault-line fuels concerns. On March 30, Los Alamos National Laboratory director Michael Anastasio testified to Congress, stating that he was concerned about this fact: "We will of course have to continue to work in our old facility, which right now is almost 60 years old. And it happens to be, literally, on top of an earthquake fault -- not the best place for a nuclear facility. And a reminder to look at what is happening in Japan." ( Anastasio retired on June 1, 2011.)

Other nuclear power plants, too, are located in tornado-, hurricane- or earthquake-prone zones. The Indian Point nuclear power plant in New York, located 38 miles north of New York City; Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, 100 miles north of Santa Barbara; and San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, 56 miles north of San Diego all rest on fault-lines.

Environmentalists have underscored that older nuclear power plants were not built with today's climate change-induced extreme weather in mind. The results could be disastrous. Given increased global warming, extreme weather is likely to continue.

Add global warming-related natural disasters to the already long list of concerns about nuclear power, which -- as Christian Parenti has reported for the Nation -- includes "a campaign to relicense and extend by 50 percent the operation of the existing fleet" of 104 nuclear reactors; and the fact that "a quarter of our reactors are leaking or have leaked radioactive carcinogenic, tritium-polluted water."

Senators Barbara Boxer (CA-D), Sheldon Whitehouse (RI-D) and Bernard Sanders (VT-I) have called for an investigation into the nuclear safety of U.S. nuclear power plants as a result of a four-part series authored by Jeff Donn that the AP kicked off on Monday. The report affirms Parenti's findings and shows that "government and industry have been working in tandem to keep aging reactors within the rules" and that "radioactive tritium leaks are found at 48 US nuclear sites."

In light of these findings about the safety of U.S. nuclear safety, Fukushima and the climate change-induced natural disasters, will the United States join Germany, Italy and Switzerland in shutting down nuclear energy? Of course, in Germany and Switzerland, it was serious street heat and people pressure, or voting with one's feet, and in Italy voting at the ballot box that led or forced politicians to shut down nuclear energy.

Tina Gerhardt's reporting on climate change and energy policy has appeared in AlterNet, Earth Island Journal, the Nation, and other publications.

[John Dolva]

While radiation monitoring of the smoke plume from the wildfire in New Mexico (50,000 barrels of plutonium and 60 years of seeped in groundwaste) has commenced, and Japanese kids are peeing radium contaminants, Nebraskas situation seems to have seriously worsened:

Fukushima in the US? Flood berms break around Fort Calhoun nuclear plant, ten-mile evacuation zone declared

Friday, July 01, 2011 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer

Love it

1

Funny

1

OMG

6

Must read

14

Outrageous

5

330

Share

225

Facebook

104

Twitter

(NaturalNews) The American public is largely being kept in the dark about the escalating Midwest flood disaster, which has now been further intensified by reports that a major nuclear plant near Omaha, Neb., has been breached by flood waters.

A few weeks ago, NaturalNews reported that an electrical console at the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Facility had caught fire, and that the plant's nuclear cooling pools had subsequently lost power for about an hour (http://www.naturalnews.com/032672_n...). Now, an AquaDam berm around the facility has reportedly been mysteriously punctured and deflated, which has sent several feet of flood water directly into the plant.

The unfolding situation at Fort Calhoun reads a lot like the Fukushima disaster. Officials have been downplaying the severity of the situation from the start, and yet it has only continued to get worse, despite their empty promises. First it was the fire, then the loss of power, then the establishment of a no-fly zone around the plant, then the breaking of the berm, and now the apparent flooding of various facilities with no end in sight.

A ten-mile evacuation zone has also been declared around the plant, despite the fact that little to no information about it can be found online or in the news (http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/20...).

According to a recent report by ENENEWS, flood waters have actually cut off the main power supply at the plant, which is now running on backup diesel generators (http://enenews.com/ft-calhoun-nuke-...).

Without power, of course, the plant's electrical systems will be unable to properly cool both the reactors and the spent fuel rods, which reports say are not effectively protected from flood waters (http://www.prisonplanet.com/berm-pr...).

The following video clip from KJKN-TV ABC 8 News in Lincoln, Neb., tells a sobering story all on its own. In it, you will see shocking, recent images of the Fort Calhoun plant completely submerged under water (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zos...).

And like they did during the early days of Fukushima, officials here continue to repeat the mantra that everything is safe, and that nothing will go wrong. But based on their track record of honesty -- not to mention the obvious disastrous conditions at the flooded, powerless facility -- can they really be trusted?

Much of the snowpack from last winter's heavy storms has yet to melt, and what has already melted is responsible for much of the intense flooding that is currently taking place all across the Midwest, including in the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan, and throughout the US states of Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri.

With more snowmelt and water surges on the way in July, as well as continued heavy rain and storms across the region, rising flood waters are far from over -- and the already-at-capacity dams and levees that line the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers will more than likely not be able to hold it all (http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manit...).

At this point in time, there are still a whole lot of questions without answers. Why is the mainstream media spending most of its time focusing on corrupt politicians and upcoming election candidates when what appears to be the worst flood situation ever to hit North America is unfolding as we speak?

Why is nobody talking about the four major reservoirs along the Missouri River held by dams that are all virtually at maximum capacity and in dire straits? And why is there practically no mention by any major, or even local, news sources about the Fort Calhoun evacuation zone?

Those living along the river, and particularly in areas near the troubled nuclear facilities, may want to perform due diligence and prepare immediately for a worst-case scenario. It is clear that authorities and the media are not being forthcoming about what is actually happening, and they may flat out be lying to us all. With this in mind, it is important to be prepared for a worst-case scenario.

Stay tuned as we will do our best to mine all available information about this escalating crisis as it becomes available, and present it to you, our readers, for consideration.

Sources for this story include:

http://articles.cnn.com/2011-06-28/...

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index....

http://www.naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=C...

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/032870_Fort_Calhoun_nuclear_power_plant.html#ixzz1QsYJT7qT

--------

From the start of Lennard Bickels "The Deadly Element - the men and women behind the story of uranium, ( Hmmm...Earth, Wind, Water and Fire...I think that which is Nature in all of its diversity musta been ignored by the fruitcakes who didn't heed it) :

FOREBODING

STOCKHOLM-

1903.

Is it right to probe so deeply into Nature's secrets.The question must here be raised whether it will benefit mankind, or whether the knowledge will be harmful. Radium could be very dangerous in criminal hands. Alfred Nobel's discoveries are characteristic; powerful explosives can help men perform admirable tasks. They are also a means to terrible destruction in the hands of the great criminals who lead peoples to war. ...

...................................................................................Pierre Curie, Nobel Price Oration

Edited July 1, 2011 by John Dolva

[John Dolva]

http://www.infiniteunknown.net/2011/07/02/former-japanese-government-nuclear-advisor-toshiso-kosako-come-the-harvest-season-in-the-fall-there-will-be-a-chaos-ceiling-on-schoolyard-radiation-levels-unacceptable-much-more-radiatio/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+InfiniteUnknown+%28Infinite+Unknown%29&utm_content=Google+International

Former Japanese Government Nuclear Advisor Toshiso Kosako: ‘Come The Harvest Season In The Fall, There Will Be A Chaos’ – Ceiling On Schoolyard Radiation Levels ‘Unacceptable’ – Much More Radiation Threats To Come

Posted On Jul 02 Environment, Global News, Health, Politics, Society Add comments - Radiation Expert Predicts More Threats (Wall Street Journal, JULY 2, 2011):

TOKYO—A former nuclear adviser to Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan blasted the government’s handling of the crisis, and predicted more revelations of radiation threats to the public in the coming months.

In his first media interview since resigning his post in protest in April, Toshiso Kosako, one of the country’s leading experts on radiation safety, said Mr. Kan’s government has been slow to test for dangers in the sea and to fish, and has understated certain radiation threats to minimize clean-up costs. In his post, Mr. Kosako’s role was to advise the prime minister on radiation safety.

And while there have been scattered reports of food contamination—of tea leaves and spinach, for example—Mr. Kosako predicted there will be broader discoveries later this year, especially as rice, Japan’s staple, is harvested.

“Come the harvest season in the fall, there will be a chaos,” Mr. Kosako said. “Among the rice harvested, there will certainly be some radiation contamination—though I don’t know at what levels—setting off a scandal. If people stop buying rice from Tohoku … we’ll have a tricky problem.”

Mr. Kosako also said that the way the government has handled the Fukushima Daiichi situation since the March 11 tsunami crippled the reactors has exposed basic flaws in Japanese policy making.

“The government’s decision-making mechanism is opaque,” he said. “It’s never clear what reasons are driving what decisions. This doesn’t look like a democratic society. Japan is increasingly looking like a developing nation in East Asia.”

Specifically, Mr. Kosako said the government set a relatively high ceiling for acceptable radiation in school yards, so that only 17 schools exceeded that limit. If the government had set the lower ceiling he had advocated, thousands of schools would have required a full cleanup. With Mr. Kan’s ruling party struggling to gain parliamentary approval for a special budget, the costlier option didn’t get traction, he said.

“When taking these steps, the only concern for the current government is prolonging its own life,” Mr. Kosako said.

Mr. Kan’s office referred questions about Mr. Kosako’s remarks to a cabinet office official, who declined to be identified. The official said the government is making “utmost efforts” to improve radiation monitoring in the sea and working closely with fishermen and others.

“Particularly close attention is paid to the safety of rice as Japan’s staple food,” the official said, adding the government would suspend the shipment of crops if radiation exceeding a set standard is detected. The government has banned the planting of rice in certain areas.

As for schools, the official said the government was working to lower the ceiling for acceptable radiation, and “is also considering additional steps. ”

Mr. Kosako, a 61-year-old Tokyo University professor who has served on a number government and industrial panels, quit Mr. Kan’s newly appointed group of nuclear experts on April 30, fueling concerns about the government’s handling of the accident.

Saying that many of recommendations from himself and the group were ignored by Mr. Kan, the scientist described the government’s ceiling on schoolyard radiation levels as “unacceptable.” The image of him wiping tears at a news conference on the day of his resignation, as he said he wouldn’t subject his own children to such an environment, was widely broadcast.

Having spent two months focusing on teaching radiation-safety courses at his university, Mr. Kosako said he is ready to begin speaking his mind again, starting with foreign audiences outside of the Japanese controversies. Over the coming weeks, he is scheduled to give speeches in the U.S. and in Taiwan.

He said he is especially concerned with contamination of the ocean by the large amounts radioactive material from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi reactors dumped into surrounding waters. The government has released only sketchy information about what has drained into the sea as a result of efforts to cool the smoldering reactors. Mr. Kosako has urged more seawater monitoring, more projections of the spread of polluted water and steps to deal with the contamination of different types of seafood, from seaweed to shellfish to fish.

“I’ve been telling them to hurry up and do it, but they haven’t,” he said.

As he resigned, Mr. Kosako submitted to government officials a thick booklet that contained all the official recommendations by him and his group he had offered during his six-week tenure. A copy of the booklet was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal through an independent source. Mr. Kosako authenticated the material.

From the time of his appointment on March 16, Mr. Kosako and some of his colleagues offered recommendations touching on a broad range of topics, according to the booklet. It was weeks before the public learned of some of them, such as a March 17 call for using the government’s Speedi radiation-monitoring system to project residents’ exposure levels using the “worst-case scenario based on a practical setting.”

On March 18, they urged the government’s Nuclear Safety Commission to re-examine the adequacy of the government’s initial evacuation zones, based on such simulations by Speedi.

The Speedi data weren’t released to the public until March 23, and the evacuation zones weren’t adjusted by the government until April 11. Critics inside and outside the government say the delay in the adjustment may have subjected thousands of Fukushima residents to high levels of radiation exposure.

[John Dolva]

People in a town near the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant have been urged to leave.

Over 100 households have been warned there is a danger of radioactivity in certain "hotspot" zones.

Already tens of thousands of Japanese living near the complex have been displaced.

In giving the warning, Japanese authorities have literally extended the official 30-kilometre evacuation zone.

The new radiation hotspots were found in Date City, which is about 50 kilometres north-west of the Fukushima nuclear plant.

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=805567

Japan's nuclear evacuation zone expands

Read more: http://www.occasion-to-be.com/forum/index.php/topic,13258.msg23262.html#msg23262#ixzz1R310ejfu

[John Dolva]

Google has clamped down on real time news on the situation in japan, ditto nebraska and new mexico form here.

Report From Tokyo: Telling It Like It Is

Posted: 07/ 3/11 04:13 PM ET

Japan , Fukushima Nuclear Plant , Nuclear Energy , Nuclear Power , Tokyo Electric Power , Fukushima , Nuclear Safety , Tokyo , World News

share this story

0 Get World Alerts Sign Up Submit this story

digg reddit stumble In scathing terms, one of Japan's honest citizens lashed out the other day, claiming that rather than do what is in the best interest of the people, the government is simply making decisions to "prolong its own life."

Toshiso Kosako, one of Japan's leading experts on nuclear safety, resigned in April in disgust as "acceptable" radiation levels were raised to those equal to nuclear workers near the Fukushima nuclear facility -- a move he felt put citizens in harm's way.

I like Mr. Kosako a lot and wrote about his bravery in a previous blog note two months ago. He tells it like it is. And he held little back in his piercing attack on the powers that be, noting that ocean testing for radiation exposure to marine life has been limited and that the fall harvest season of radiated rice will create "havoc." We shall see. In the meantime, I stopped eating fish from surrounding Japanese waters two months ago and have developed a love for imported pasta from Italy and canned spaghetti sauce.

Mr. Kosako knows how Japan works. For this reason, he intends to put pressure on Japan from outside Japan. "Gaiatsu," or outside pressure, has proven to be a most effective way of initiating change here. Many non-Japanese know this, too.

Of equal importance and through his actions, Mr. Kosako raises the issue of who works for whom. Since March, the people of Japan have never really realized the power they possess to be the ultimate initiators of desired change. I pointed this out in a previous blog note. It is the taxpayers of Japan who are the bosses and public servants the employees, not the other way around. In time, the masses will "get it."

Signs of enlightenment are happening. A group of residents, including a mayor in Shizuoka Prefecture, have filed a lawsuit seeking to decommission the Hamaoka nuclear power plant for safety reasons. In addition, the governor of Saga Prefecture has come under fire at their prefectural assembly for his willingness to see the restart of two reactors at the Genkai nuclear power station. They see why there is reason for concern. And at the recent Tokyo Electric Power shareholders meeting, heckles and shouts greeted the leadership. So slowly there is evidence that limits have been reached.

Let us also not forget those suffering up north near the reactor zone. Tens of thousands of people are still living in gymnasiums and other public facilities with no privacy and increasingly no hope. Suicides are on the rise as feelings of desperation win over images of a bright future. Even so, many prefer to stay in this situation (vs. opt for recently-built government housing) because at least where they are they are guaranteed food each day. Wiped out and with no savings, knowing they can eat wins out over privacy. What a choice.

Follow David Wagner on Twitter: www.twitter.com/davidwagnerasia

[John Dolva]

A POX ON GOOGLE ! Let it enter the dustbin of history where it belongs.

Cover-Up Anger: Japanese outraged with govt keeping truth in the dark

by: admin Tuesday, June 28th, 2011 The Japanese government is starting radiation checkups for more than two million people living near the crippled Fukushima plant. It’s part of a long-term health monitoring programme – launched over 3 months after the nuclear crisis started. And as RT’s Sean Thomas reports, confusion over where’s safe – and where isn’t – is seeing many lose trust in the authorities.

[John Dolva]

"Nuclear power plants are, next to nuclear warheads themselves, the most dangerous devices that man has ever created. Their construction and proliferation is the most irresponsible, in fact the most criminal act ever to have taken place on this planet" Patrick Moore, Assault on Future Generations, 1976

[John Dolva]

japan times online

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

45% of kids sustained thyroid radiation

Kyodo Around 45 percent of children in Fukushima Prefecture checked by the prefectural and central governments in late March experienced thyroid exposure to radiation, although in all cases in trace amounts that didn't warrant further examination, officials of the Nuclear Safety Commission said Tuesday.

The survey was conducted on 1,080 children from newborns to age 15 in Iwaki, Kawamata and Iitate from March 26 to 30 in light of radiation leaking from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.

Among children who tested positive for thyroid exposure, the amounts measured 0.04 microsievert per hour or less in most cases. The largest exposure was 0.1 microsievert per hour, equivalent to a yearly dose of 50 millisieverts for a 1-year-old.

None of those surveyed was exposed to more than 0.2 microsievert per hour, the government's benchmark for conducting more detailed examinations, according to the officials.

Scientific surveys of hibakusha from Hiroshima and Nagasaki have indicated that exposure of 100 milisieverts in total could increase cancer morality risk by 0.5 percent.

Meanwhile, a survey of soil at four locations in the city of Fukushima on June 26 found that all samples were contaminated with radioactive cesium, measuring 16,000 to 46,000 becquerels per kilogram and exceeding the legal limit of 10,000 becquerels per kg, citizens' groups said Tuesday.

The city, about 60 km northwest of the crippled plant, doesn't fall within the 20-km no-entry zone or nearby evacuation areas.

The citizens' groups, led by the Fukushima Network to Protect Children from Radiation, had asked Kobe University professor Tomoya Yamauchi, an expert in radiology, to lead the survey.

Another sample taken from a street ditch — where nuclear fallout often accumulates — registered as much as 931,000 becquerels per sq. meter, surpassing the 555,000 becquerels per sq. meter limit for compulsory resettlement in the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident. Samples from the other three locations measured between 326,000 and 384,000 becquerels per sq. meter.

An earlier survey on soil in the city of Fukushima by the science ministry has found 37,000 becquerels of radioactive substances per 1 kg — equivalent to 740,000 becquerels per sq. meter.