Fukushima Lies

[ted_bloody_maul]

don't see really any difference. They don't tell people because if they did, it would cost them money ? In other words, because it benefits them not to tell what's happening ? No matter how important it is ?
That's where the shoe pinches : the media were never led by a will to inform the public for its own benefit, but by greed. They don't report what is disturbing, or only in low key fashion, because they would lose customers. And they are supposed to be our main reliable source of information ?

No. That's not what I'm saying. As much as it's derided a short course of media studies would probably help explain to you the basic principles of how the media works (or more accurately work). If you think that bad news doesn't get reported because it would deter customers I would recommend a day reading the British press. Before the day is out the Daily Mail, for example, will have you believing that reading can give you eye cancer or the Sun might tell you that gypsies will steal your house as soon as you go out for work. If that's not enough then the Independent will probably have a picture of a polar bear crying underneath the headline 'Apocalypse?'. Bad news sells, no news is good news and good news is no news.

I don't know if you are serious. The plant was affected by explosions soon. No such thing had happened at Three Miles Island. Explosions meant serious breaches, which meant important radioactive leaks.


It's certainly possible that they didn't know everything.

But apparently we should assume otherwise?

But they certainly had access to readings that gave them a good idea of the gravity of the situation.
By the way, inspecting the facilities was all they could do after they had supposedly restored power supply. They had also lied about that.
What is for certain is that the situation could only worsen if they couldn't intervene. All evidence converges to demonstrate that this was the case.
http://www.politis.fr/Fukushima-Tepco-c ... 14247.html

Quote:
Fukushima : Tepco is beginning to admit

......
This admission did not come without reasons : on 24 May, a team of twenty experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency will begin an inspection of the damage and of the plants, which last about ten days. Even taking into account the IAEA's well known leniency, it could only state, and then report that Tepco has been lying since the accident about whappened in the plant...

There's that word 'lying' again. Could you possibly provide an example of where the IAEA has reported that Tepco has been lying since the accident, otherwise it's difficult to credit the aritcle (or its interpretation) with any value. Thanks.

So they could have misled the public after all ?
Mass panic ? Probably, it was one of their concerns. But the situation that led to the possibility of mass panic is the consequence of their careless policy. A policy whose consequences they couldn't face.

Not neccessarily. Mass panic could be a consequence of scare-mongering by others overstating or distorting the data. There are a few, both in the mainstream and non-mainstream media, who have form for exploiting fears for their own ends (one of them being to shift newspapers, get eyes on screens, that sort of thing).

Not any claim, but a good deal of them do.

Quite, which is why it's worth at least trying to approach the claims with an open mind.

The systems worked ? Not well, as there was damage that should never have been in the case of an earthquake of this magnitude. Despite previous reassurances that the plants were 100 % fullproof. Another illustration of their thoughtlessness.

Evidently they have never claimed to be 100% fullproof. If they did then there would have been no need for any plans to deal with the exceptions to their claims. At the end of the day the success will be measured in long-term effects, effects which have to be balanced against alternatives. The short term effects have been relatively benign given the example of Chernobyl.

Don't put the wrong blame on the wrong people.
They have agendas, like almost any website or media. But they are not those who are involved in the fact that those questions are usually ignored.

No, they're just peddling miracle cures for cancer.

With the consequences we are now facing.
As for the reasons, yes, the most likely are the links between the nuclear industries and the political world.

In France, I can provide evidence of a similar situation : a study of the ASN (Nuclear Security Authority) showed that EDF deliberately underestimated seismic risks, ignoring the studies of the IRSN (Institute for Radiological protection and Nuclear Security). The other revelation is that the IRSN knew that, chose to remain silent and took no action. In fact, the ASN took no more action (although it could change, after Fukushima).

Then please provide the evidence so we can summarise it for ourselves. That aside Fukushima was not brought to its present condition by an earthquake but by a tsunami so the comparison is somewhat faulty to begin with.

?!?
Probably the reason why the intervention in situ couldn't be conducted properly, despite that the staff wore heavy protective clothes. In fact, an intervention in a severely damaged nuclear facility is impossible to conduct properly, without sacrificing the workers - what the Soviets had done at Chernobyl.

The IAEA has reclassified the incident at the level 7, the same than Chernobyl. And relating to impact on public health, it had been unremarkable at Chernobyl in the aftermath of the accident too - except fot he workers who had been sent in situ.

Well, in that respect the numbers don't compare:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/ap ... comparison

It's the same level but that doesn't mean the impact is the same - you can't get any higher than a level 7. In the real world nuclear meltdowns don't restrict their effects so as not too exceed classification. Chernobyl was considerably worse. Very few are suggesting otherwise.

This one, in my opinion, is best left ignored.

Then please feel free to do so with as much success as you like. I stand by it and I've seen nothing since which would convince me it's incorrent. The desire to escalate Fukushima to the level of destruction caused by Chernobyl is only the latest example of a sort of persistent disaster-lust.

Be careful : a suspicious mind might conclude that you have an agenda... See how it is easy to ascribe nefarious motives to anybody.

Yes, I do. That's the point I've been making re the quacks and conmen you cite and so on. I'm glad it's catching on. Although I wouldn't say I was ascribing any nefarious motives, just subconscious ones.

 

[Analis]

No. That's not what I'm saying. As much as it's derided a short course of media studies would probably help explain to you the basic principles of how the media works (or more accurately work). If you think that bad news doesn't get reported because it would deter customers I would recommend a day reading the British press. Before the day is out the Daily Mail, for example, will have you believing that reading can give you eye cancer or the Sun might tell you that gypsies will steal your house as soon as you go out for work. If that's not enough then the Independent will probably have a picture of a polar bear crying underneath the headline 'Apocalypse?'. Bad news sells, no news is good news and good news is no news.

In fact, many people like scary stories, as long as they're meant to remain scary stories. When suddenly they become the real thing, that's another story.

There's that word 'lying' again. Could you possibly provide an example of where the IAEA has reported that Tepco has been lying since the accident, otherwise it's difficult to credit the aritcle (or its interpretation) with any value. Thanks.

It's unlikely that the IAEA would use the word lying. IAE's leniency again. But when we know that Tepco didn't say the truth, told untruths etc..., that means they were lying, no ? In the exemple above, I remember well that they claimed that power supply would be restored soon. A few days later, it became apparent that it was just propaganda, to buy time.

Not neccessarily. Mass panic could be a consequence of scare-mongering by others overstating or distorting the data. There are a few, both in the mainstream and non-mainstream media, who have form for exploiting fears for their own ends (one of them being to shift newspapers, get eyes on screens, that sort of thing).

Mass panic could also be a consequence of the revelation that a large area had to be evacuated, that it was probably not enough, that contamination was spreading, and that the authorities couldn't do much...

Evidently they have never claimed to be 100% fullproof.

In truth, they had claimed on numerous occasions that they were to earthquakes of this magnitude.

If they did then there would have been no need for any plans to deal with the exceptions to their claims.

That's the definition of irresponsibilty, when we deal with something as dangerous as nuclear energy. Every conceivable exception should be taken into account.
And saying that the sequence of events was improbable is a bad excuse. Improbable means possible as times passes.

In France, I can provide evidence of a similar situation : a study of the ASN (Nuclear Security Authority) showed that EDF deliberately underestimated seismic risks, ignoring the studies of the IRSN (Institute for Radiological protection and Nuclear Security). The other revelation is that the IRSN knew that, chose to remain silent and took no action. In fact, the ASN took no more action (although it could change, after Fukushima).

Then please provide the evidence so we can summarise it for ourselves.

Don't worry, I will.

That aside Fukushima was not brought to its present condition by an earthquake but by a tsunami so the comparison is somewhat faulty to begin with.

That was the first version. Now we know that it was a combination of both.

Well, in that respect the numbers don't compare:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/ap ... comparison

It's the same level but that doesn't mean the impact is the same - you can't get any higher than a level 7. In the real world nuclear meltdowns don't restrict their effects so as not too exceed classification. Chernobyl was considerably worse. Very few are suggesting otherwise.

The amount of radiation released was higher. The main difference was that there was no containment wall at Chernobyl, allowing the reactor to be directly exposed. But 10 times more does not place it into a wholly different category.
The Nisa states the difference. But at the same time, it asks the Japanese government to extend the evacuation area to 40 km. And it may be too conservative. Signification contamination has already been detected at 50 km. And people located at greater distances will suffer significant exposure. This is the very definition of a major disaster.
As for the short-term effects, it confirms what I said : the victims were mainly the emergency rescue workers. The Soviet authorities had seen them as expandable.
For the after-effects, we'll see. Those of Chernobyl remain themselves disputed. There is no agreement relating to the number of radiation-induced cancers and other illnesses. What is sure is that the health of Fukushima residents will be similarly scrutinized.

The desire to escalate Fukushima to the level of destruction caused by Chernobyl is only the latest example of a sort of persistent disaster-lust.

Residents have already become the subjects of in-vivo experiments. And by refusing to enlarge the evacuation area, the Japanese governement is putting into danger a greater number of them.

Yes, I do. That's the point I've been making re the quacks and conmen you cite and so on.

My agenda is to denounce much more dangerous quacks and conmen.
Relating to another agenda, promoting nuclear energy to fight global warming and the fossil fuel industry, it would be reasonable to consider only if all precautions were taken. Today, this is clearly not the case.

 

[Analis]

http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/06/fuku ... apans.html

Thursday, June 2, 2011
#Fukushima I Nuke Accident: Japan's Nuclear Safety Commission Ready to Loosen Already-Loose Radiation Safety Limit for Foods


The Nuclear Safety Commission headed by Haruki "Detarame ('Falsehood'; his cute nickname by the irate Japanese citizens)" Madarame has proposed that the Japanese government loosen the provisional safety limits for foods, as the Fukushima nuclear disaster continues.

(Oh by the way, did you know the provisional safety numbers for radioactive materials in foods, milk and drinking water were decided on the basis of 5 millisieverts per year radiation exposure?)

From Mainichi Shinbun Japanese (2/6/2011; emphasis is mine):


On June 2, the Nuclear Safety Commission under the Cabinet Office indicated the need for revising the provisional safety limits for the radioactive materials in foods and drinking water. Japan's Food Safety Law does not have the formal safety standards for radioactive materials. After the Fukushima I Nuke Plant accident, the Japanese government has set provisional safety limits for radioactive materials for each food item so that the total radiation [from food and water?] would be below 5 millisieverts per year. This number is the most strict one among the numbers recommended by the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) as the government guidelines to restrict the shipment [of the food items]. However, as the Fukushima accident continues, some experts have voiced concern that [these provisional numbers] do not fit the actual situation [i.e. they are too low]. Commissioner Seiji Shiroya spoke in the ad-hoc meeting of the Commission on June 2 that "It is not desirable to use the provisional numbers as if they were set in stone."

 

[Mythopoeika]

What next - glow in the dark porridge, eh?
We already have that over here. It's called 'Ready Brek'...

 

[Analis]

The situation doesn't bode well :

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/05/ ... cture.html

Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Guest Post: Update on the Japanese Nuclear Crisis … Not a Pretty Picture

? Washington’s Blog



Experts have long said that Tepco’s projections for containing the nuclear crisis this year were unrealistic. Now, even Tepco is admitting that things won’t be stabilized this year. As Kyodo News reports:

Stabilizing the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant by the end of the year may be impossible, senior officials at
Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Sunday, throwing a monkey wrench into plans to let evacuees return to their homes near the
plant.

***

On May 12, it was confirmed that a meltdown had occurred at the No. 1 reactor, forcing the utility to abandon the water
entombment idea and try to install a new cooling system that decontaminates and recycles the radioactive water flooding
the reactor’s turbine building instead.

Given that the contaminated water has leaked from the No. 1 reactor’s containment vessel, a Tepco official said, “We must
first determine where it is leaking and seal it.”

The official added, “Unless we understand the extent of the damage, we don’t even know how long that work alone
would take,” noting the need for one or two months more than previously thought to establish an entirely new cooling
system.

In other words, Tepco has no idea how long it will take to contain the leaking reactors.

As has been obvious from the start, Tepco has also covered up vital information. Now, even the Japanese government is lambasting Tepco for its secrecy. As Kyodo News notes:

Tokyo Electric Power Co. did not fully disclose radiation monitoring data after its Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant was crippled by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, the government revealed Friday. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, after being informed by Goshi Hosono, a special adviser to Prime Minister Naoto Kan, told reporters that he instructed Tepco to sort out the data, make it public and make doubly sure no more information-withholding occurs.

Coming a day after he blasted Tepco’s flip-flop over the injection of seawater into the plant’s reactor 1, Edano said the government “cannot respond to this matter on the premise” that no more undisclosed information will emerge.

“There is a distinct possibility that there is still more,” he said, urging Tepco to accurately and swiftly report the truth to the government.

Hosono also noted Tepco’s delay in revealing this fact, 2? months after the nuclear crisis started.

The government will look into how this happened, the two officials said.

You’ve already heard that 3 of the Fukushima reactors melted down within hours of the earthquake.

Yomiuri Daily reports today that not only the pressure vessels (the innermost barrier) but also the containment vessels (the outer barrier) of reactors 1 and 3 were also damaged within hours of the quake:

Not only the pressure vessels, but the containment vessels of the Nos. 1 to 3 reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant were probably damaged within 24 hours of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, according to Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s analysis of the nuclear crisis.

As I previously noted, the IAEA knew within weeks that there had been meltdowns at Fukushima. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission knew as well. As Kyodo News reports (scroll down to second story):

A senior nuclear regulatory official in the United States said Thursday he believed there was a “strong likelihood” of serious core damage and core melt at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant in the days immediately after the crisis began.

“There were numerous indications of high radiation levels that can only come from damaged fuel at those kinds of levels,” said Bill Borchardt, executive director for operations at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. “So we felt pretty confident that there was significant fuel damage at the site a few days into the event.”

The NRC also had “suspicions” about the conditions of the spent fuel pools, Borchardt said after a speech at the Japan Society in New York.

Based on that assumption, he said, the NRC recommended that U.S. residents in Japan stay 80 km away from the crippled power plant, which was far beyond the Japanese government’s recommendation for residents within a 20-km radius to evacuate.

While most of the problems have been at reactors 1, 2 and 3 (which were all operating when the earthquake hit) and reactor 4 (where spent fuel rods have been leaking), there have also been problems at reactor number 5 as well. Specifically, as NHK writes:

The operator of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says temperatures in the Number 5 reactor and its spent fuel storage pool have risen due to pump failure. The reactor has been in a state of cold shutdown.

Tokyo Electric Power Company says it found at 9 PM on Saturday that a pump bringing seawater to cooling equipment for the reactor and pool had stopped working.

TEPCO says temperatures have been rising since then.

To make matters worse, Typhoon Songda has brought heavy rains to Fukushima. As Al Jazeera notes:

The typhoon has already brought heavy rain to the Fukushima region and there is still more to come. This has prompted worries that runoff water may wash away radioactive materials from the land into the Pacific Ocean.

The plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has been pouring synthetic resins over the complex in an attempt to stabilise the plant. More work needs to be done, not just now but also to ensure that future typhoons would not spread radioactive materials into the environment.

As Raw Story reported:

Officials from the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) are apologizing in advance for the fact that the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant is not ready for the high winds and heavy rain of Typhoon Songda, a massive storm that could make landfall in Japan as early as Monday.

The BBC quotes a TEPCO official as saying, “We have made utmost efforts, but we have not completed covering the damaged reactor buildings. We apologize for the lack of significant measures against wind and rain.”

Buildings housing the plant’s nuclear reactors are still standing open in the wake of crippling hydrogen explosions that followed Japan’s March 11 earthquake and tsunami. The approaching storm could scatter highly radioactive materials into the air and sea. Plant operators are currently spreading “anti-scattering agents” around the buildings housing reactors one and four.

As I’ve predicted for a long time, the Fukushima disaster could end up being much worse than Chernobyl. See this, this, this and this.

Mainichi (and Japan Times) report:

Radiation released by the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has caused soil contamination matching the levels seen in the Chernobyl disaster in some areas, a researcher told the government’s nuclear policy-setting body Tuesday.

***

The size of the contaminated areas in the Fukushima crisis is one-tenth to one-fifth of those polluted in the Chernobyl disaster, Kawata said.

It’s not just the soil, it’s also the seafloor. NHK notes that radiation has been found in the entire 300 kilometer (186 mile) region of the coast tested near Fukushima.

And Harvey Wasserman notes that there may have been 10 times more radiation released into the ocean than by Chernobyl:

New readings show levels of radioisotopes found up to 30 kilometers offshore from the on-going crisis at Fukushima are ten times higher than those measured in the Baltic and Black Seas during Chernobyl.

“When it comes to the oceans, says Ken Buesseler, a chemical oceonographer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, “the impact of Fukushima exceeds Chernobyl.”

***

For all the focus on land-based contamination, the continuing flood of radioactive materials into the ocean at Fukushima could have the most problematic long-term impacts. Long-term studies of radiological impacts on the seas are few and far between. Though some heavy isotopes may drop to the sea bottom, others could travel long distances through their lengthy half-lives. Some also worry that those contaminants that do fall to the bottom could be washed back on land by future tsunamis.

***

“After Chernobyl, fallout was measured,” says Buesseler, “from as far afield as the north Pacific Ocean.”

A quarter-century later the international community is still trying to install a massive, hugely expensive containment structure to suppress further radiation releases in the wake of Chernobyl’s explosion.

Such a containment would be extremely difficult to sustain at seaside Fukushima, which is still vulnerable to earthquakes and tsunamis. To be of any real use, all six reactors and all seven spent fuel pools would have to be covered.

But avenues to the sea would also have to be contained. Fukushima is much closer to the ocean than Chernobyl, so more intense contamination might be expected. But the high radiation levels being measured indicate Fukushima’s most important impacts may be on marine life.

The US has ceased measuring contamination in Pacific seafood. But for centuries to come, at least some radioactive materials dumped into the sea at Fukushima will find their way into the creatures of the sea and the humans that depend on them.

To add insult to injury, Zero Hedge notes that oil is also spilling into the ocean near Fukushima:

Just because mega-radioactive water leakage was not enough. From Xinhua: “Operator of the troubled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant found that oil has been leaking into the sea close to the facility, the Kyodo News reported Tuesday. The operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) said the oil leaks were possibly from nearby oil tanks that may have been damaged in the March earthquake and tsunami, and it would set up oil fences to prevent the liquid from pouring into the Pacific Ocean.” Oh, but they only discovered this now? Odd how it took nearly 3 months for those oil tanks to rupture and start spilling into the water.

Update: While an explosion occurred near reactor 4 today, that appears to be the least of the problems at the Fukushima nuclear complex.

 

[Analis]

New dangers of contaminated water leakage. The article includes a pertinent comparison with BP's handling of the Deepwater disaster.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-0 ... -days.html

Fukushima Radioactive Water May Breach Plant’s Storage Trenches in 5 Days
By Tsuyoshi Inajima - Jun 2, 2011 12:32 PM GMT+0200 .


Radioactive water accumulating in Japan’s crippled Fukushima plant may start overflowing from service trenches in five days, potentially increasing the contamination from the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. has been manually pumping water into overheating reactors after cooling systems broke down and much of that has overflowed into basements and trenches. The water is rising at a rate that means it will overflow as early as June 6, Bloomberg calculations from the company’s data show.

“There is still a risk of radioactive water leaking into the sea,” Hikaru Kuroda, an official at the utility known as Tepco, said in Tokyo today. “We may have between five and seven days before the water levels reach the top of the trenches.”

Almost 60 percent of Japanese adults worry they’ve been contaminated since Fukushima started emitting radiation almost three months ago, according to a Pew Research Center poll. The poll shows at least 80 percent of the population is dissatisfied with the response either from Tepco or the government of Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who survived a no-confidence vote today.

“Solving the problem of contaminated water is critical,” said Tetsuo Ito, the head of the Atomic Energy Research Institute at Kinki University in western Japan.

Tepco shares rose 2 percent to 305 yen in Tokyo. The stock has fallen 86 percent since March 10, the day before an earthquake and tsunami knocked out power and cooling at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant, erasing 3 trillion yen ($37 billion) of the company’s market value.

Leaking Water
Tepco has pumped millions of liters of cooling water into the three reactors that melted down. By May 18, almost 100,000 tons of radioactive water had leaked into the basements of reactor and turbine buildings, connecting tunnels and service trenches at the plant, according to Tepco’s estimates.

Water levels are between 27.7 centimeters (11 inches) below the top of a shaft leading to a trench connected to the No. 2 building and 23.9 centimeters below the ground at the No. 3 unit today, Junichi Matsumoto, a general manager at Tepco, said.

The levels were 64.1 centimeters for the No. 2 building and 45.6 for No. 3 on May 27, showing a rate of increase that will reach the lip of the trenches as early as June 6.

To prevent leakage into the ocean, Tepco poured concrete and gravel to seal trenches closest to the sea near the No. 2, 3 and 4 reactors, Tepco spokesman Takeo Iwamoto said by phone.

Water Storage
“We are still considering the measures to be taken if contaminated water leaks,” Iwamoto said today.

The company may transfer more water than planned to a waste story facility to avoid overflows, Matsumoto said.

“There are likely to be underground leakage pathways that will be very hard to plug, and therefore the only way to stop the ongoing marine contamination is to remove the water from basements and other structures as quickly as possible,” environmental group Greenpeace International said in a statement.

The rate of increase in water level quickened because of three days of rain from typhoon Songda that weakened as it swept past Japan earlier this week. Namie, a town near the Fukushima Dai-Ichi station, had 112 millimeters of rain on May 30, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.

Japan is regularly buffeted by typhoons and tropical storms between May and October, adding another risk to containing the radiated water at the Fukushima station. Hydrogen explosions at the plant blew the roofs off three reactor buildings, exposing pools containing spent fuel rods.

Typhoon Measures
Takeo Iwamoto, a spokesman for the utility, said the company plans to complete installing covers for the buildings by October.

In early April, Tepco spent days trying to stop a leak of highly radioactive water into the sea from a pit near the No. 2 reactor. It turned to using concrete, sawdust, newsprint and absorbent polymer used in diapers to block the leak.

The efforts failed and drew comparisons with BP Plc’s attempts to plug an oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico last year with golf balls and strips of rubber tires. The Tepco leak was eventually sealed with sodium-silicate, known as liquid glass.

Tepco on April 5 said it had dumped almost 10 million liters (2.6 million gallons) of radioactive water into the sea from the Fukushima plant, which led to radioactive cesium being found in fish at levels exceeding health guidelines.

The company said at the time the decision was the lesser of two evils as it needed to find space for storing water that was highly radioactive and more toxic that what was released into the sea.

To contact the reporter on this story: Tsuyoshi Inajima in Tokyo at [email protected]

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Amit Prakash at [email protected]

Tepco has pumped millions of liters of cooling water into the three reactors that melted down. By May 18, almost 100,000 tons of radioactive water had leaked into the basements of reactor and turbine buildings, connecting tunnels and service trenches at the plant, according to Tepco’s estimates. Source: Japan Ministry of Defense via Bloomberg

 

[Analis]

Now, in the USA, another nuclear plant is under water. News have spread that the incident had already become serious, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission classifying it at 4.

http://www.canetalk.com/2011/06/1308149 ... 5460.shtml

Ft Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant at Level 4 Accident

Posted by JAC on 6/15/2011, 9:46 am

http://hawaiinewsdaily.com/2011/06/nebr ... -disaster/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHJ6C35f ... re=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... KyBwa9ySaQ



The Fort Calhoun, Nebraska, Nuclear power plant is going down fast due to massive flooding.

The NRC has declared it a level 4 accident.

The FAA has issued the following directive, shutting down airspace over the plant:

FDC 1/6523 ZMP FLIGHT RESTRICTIONS FORT CALHOUN NUCLEAR POWER PLANT BLAIR,NE EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. PURSUANT TO 14 CFR SECTION 91.137(A)(3) TEMPORARY FLIGHT RESTRICTIONS ARE IN EFFECT FOR FLOOD RELIEF EFFORTS WITHIN A 2 NAUTICAL MILE RADIUS OF 413113N/0960438W OR THE OMAHA /OVR/ VORTAC 316 DEGREE RADIAL AT 26.1 NAUTICAL MILES AT AND BELOW 3500 FEET MSL. NEBRASKA STATE PATROL, LT. FRANK PECK TELEPHONE 402-450-1867 IS IN CHARGE OF THE OPERATION. MINNEAPOLIS /ZMP/ ARTCC TELEPHONE 651-463-5580 IS THE FAA COORDINATION FACILITY.

Location: Ft. Calhoun, NE (19 miles N of Omaha, NE) in Region IV
Operator: Omaha Public Power District
Operating License: Issued - 08/09/1973
Renewed License: Issued - 11/04/2003
License Expires: 08/09/2033
Docket Number: 05000285
Reactor Type: Pressurized Water Reactor
Electrical Output: 500 MWe
Reactor Vendor/Type: Combustion Engineering
Containment Type: Dry, Ambient Pressure


The Fort Calhoun nuclear power station in Fort Calhoun, Neb., currently shut down for refueling, is surrounded by flood waters from the Missouri River, Tuesday, June 14, 2011.

On Tuesday, the releases at Gavins Point Dam in South Dakota hit the maximum planned amount of 150,000 cubic feet of water per second, which are expected to raise the Missouri River 5 to 7 feet above flood stage in most of Nebraska and Iowa

Or not ? :

http://www.9news.com/news/world/203712/ ... NTPAGE%7Ct

Nebraska nuclear plant managers answer rumors
7:06 PM, Jun 16, 2011 | + Written by
Jeffrey Wolf FILED UNDER
World News
U.S./World News

OMAHA, Neb. - Last week, flooding in the Midwest swamped a nuclear power plant in Nebraska causing a small fire.

Since then, the rumors flooding the Internet about the situation reached the level where the plant managers had to set the record straight.

The first rumor claimed that the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Station near Omaha is at a Level 4 alert. Managers say that is false. They say there was an unusual event alert issued last week when the fire broke out. However, that is the least serious of any emergency classification.

The second rumor claims a no-fly zone was set up over the plant. This is true. The FAA set up the no-fly zone, but it was due the flooding and not because of radiation.

Managers say the plant has been in cold shut down mode since April for a planned refueling. Managers have decided to keep it that way until the river recedes.

For more, you can visit the station's rumor control page: http://www.oppd.com/AboutUs/22_007105.

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

Maybe we won't have another Fukushima. But if the managers are right, then it is also true that : the plant has been in cold shut down mode since April for a planned refueling. What if it hadn't been the case ?

 

[Analis]

http://serbatop.blogspot.com/2011/06/to ... water.html

Too much radiation, the plant stopped water decontamination in Fukushima Tokyo
Saturday, June 18, 2011 by Streamist

Latest world news Too much radiation, the plant stopped water decontamination in Fukushima Tokyo. Parts of the system that absorb radioactive cesium must be changed much sooner than expected because of excessive levels of radiation, officials said Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO).

The plant decontamination work began Friday at 8:00 p.m. (1100 GMT) and had to be stopped five hours later, the sources said.

The operator did not say when the plant cleanup would begin to operate.

The chain of decontamination of the plant is based on the methods of French nuclear group Areva and the US Kurion.

"We are still the cause" of excessive levels of radiation, said Junichi Matsumoto, in charge of nuclear operations in Tepco.

According to TEPCO, radioactive sludge is entered into the reprocessing system where treated water is more radioactive than Tepco originally thought.

Some 100,000 tons of highly radioactive water accumulated in the reactor building and turbine Fukushima Daiichi (No.
1) since the earthquake and tsunami of March 11.

These effluents prevent workers from entering the facility to re-cooling systems of nuclear fuel, damaged by a wave 14 feet high that swept through the plant.

The plant decontamination will be able to process 50 tons of waste per hour, or 1,200 tons per day by dividing the radioactivity by a factor of 1,000 to 10,000 times.

The company Tepco, who managed to stop the fusion fuel in the reactors watering day and night with sea water and fresh water, is still forced to inject about 500 tons of water Every day, some of which accumulates in plants.

Tepco can then reuse the decontaminated liquid in the cooling systems once they are restored.

But the operator will have to set another problem: the radioactive sludge from the treatment of decontamination.

April 17, TEPCO announced that it hoped to significantly reduce radiation leaks from the plant by July and sent to stabilize the reactor temperature below 100 degrees Celsius by January.

Meanwhile, the Japanese government found that nuclear power plants, arrested as a precaution after Fukushima, could resume work.

"I request that the plants are operating again," said Banri Kaieda, the Minister of Industry, recalling that additional security measures were implemented.

At present, only 17 of the 54 civilian nuclear reactors work.

Japan gets 30% of its energy from nuclear activity.

Obviously, everything goes exactely as TEPCO plans... But the article remains probably still too optimistic, when it states that "TEPCO... managed to stop the fusion fuel by watering day and night".

 

[Analis]

http://www.sacbee.com/2011/06/18/371080 ... z1PiksYD00

Nuclear plant worker's safety mask left no room for his glasses

The Yomiuri Shimbun
Published: Saturday, Jun. 18, 2011 - 1:00 am
Last Modified: Saturday, Jun. 18, 2011 - 5:30 pm
TOKYO -- Wearing eyeglasses behind his safety mask contributed to a worker at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in Japan receiving more than double the maximum allowed dose of radiation, according to a Tokyo Electric Power Co. investigation.

Tepco said the man's eyeglasses prevented his protective mask from forming a tight seal against his face, enabling radioactive substances to get in.

The man, in his 30s, was exposed to 678 millisieverts of radiation while working at the plant in the days after the Great East Japan Earthquake. The upper limit for an emergency worker is cumulative exposure of 250 millisieverts.

Another man, in his 40s, who worked at the plant at the same time was exposed to 643 millisieverts.

At a press conference Friday - at which a revised plan for settling the nuclear crisis was also announced - Tepco said it had taken additional steps to monitor the radiation exposure of workers at the plant, such as having them wear dosimeters while on duty that automatically record radiation doses.

The same day, Tepco told the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency it would work to prevent similar incidents in the future. Preventive steps to be taken include purchasing masks that provide proper protection even when worn with eyeglasses.

From March 11 to March 13, the two men worked in the plant's No. 3 and No. 4 reactors' central control rooms, which are located in the same building. They were responsible for checking data and other tasks, Tepco said.

They were reassigned to a building that houses the firm's emergency headquarters, where radiation levels were lower than in the control rooms, on the evening of March 13.

The two did not take potassium iodide tablets, which prevent radioactive iodine from accumulating in the body. There were no such tablets stored in the control rooms.

The men were so busy in the control rooms, they ate at their posts, which required removing their protective masks. If they had been less busy, they could have gone to the headquarters building to eat, where radiation levels were lower.

The man in his 40s was working near the emergency exit of the control room from March 11 to March 13. The exit seal was damaged by a hydrogen explosion at the No. 1 reactor on the evening of March 12, and Tepco believes this resulted in radioactive substances entering the control room.

 

[Analis]

TEPCO had already a long tradition of lies, and had concealed on more than one occasion information to the Japanese state. The latter was also quite lenient. The disaster was quite predictable.


http://forum.gloresis.com/2011/05/16/te ... y-history/

TEPCO’s shady history
Posted on March 14, 2011 by Tim Shorrock
In 2002, Tokyo Electric Co. admitted to falsifying its records of nuclear inspections and hiding the facts for more than a decade. Ironically, the information came from a whistleblower at GE, which helped build the plants and has contracted with TEPCO on operational matters for decades.
JUST POSTED: “Nuclear Gypsies.” A 1980 report alleges that GE hired primarily black subcontractors for its Japanese plants, including TEPCO’s Fukushima reactors.
MORE UPDATES: Embattled TEPCO faces its BP moment – Observer/Guardian. Frustrated with TEPCO, Kan turns to SDF in nuclear crisis – Mainichi Daily News.

The problems at the tsunami-stricken nuclear power plant at Fukushima continue to mount. On Monday in Japan, another hydrogen explosion shook the plant as the utility and the government tried furiously to stop a meltdown at two reactors. This morning the New York Times is reporting that “experts in Japan and the United States say the country is now facing a cascade of accumulating problems that suggest that radioactive releases of steam from the crippled plants could go on for weeks or even months.”
If we’ve learned anything from the crisis so far, it’s that the Japan government and its nuclear industry don’t have the smoothest PR in the world. Ever since the tsunami knocked out the plant’s cooling system on Friday and the reactor cores began over-heating, the official word has been confusing, contradictory and downright mysterious.
The problem was underscored in a most ludicrous way on Saturday afternoon in Washington, when the Japanese Ambassador appeared on CNN with Wolf Blitzter and sought almost desperately to reassure the world that everything was fine. “No meltdown,” he snapped to Wolf. But, within minutes, the ambassador was contradicted by the head of Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety agency, which told CNN that a meltdown actually “might be under way.” Hard to reconcile those two points (see this chart on what happens in a meltdown.)
By now, of course, it’s clear that there’s been a partial meltdown, and we’re all hoping that the situation can be brought under control and the radiation contained. Yet the impression lingers of, let us say, a failure to communicate. And it’s much worse for people in Japan, who are trying to sort through the conflicting information and monitoring a news media that doesn’t seem to be demanding answers. As my friend Alan Gleason, a translator, editor and jazz musician living in Tokyo, wrote on this site yesterday,

So far the most sobering and disturbing thing is the inability or unwillingness of government and power company spokesmen to give straight answers about what’s going on, as well as the TV stations’ unwillingness to press them on this…[It seems that] when a man-made disaster, or one exacerbated by human error, occurs, self-censorship kicks in to protect powerful interests.

One of those interests may be the utility itself, TEPCO. It is the world’s third-largest utility with a long and complicated relationship with General Electric Co. (GE built many of its plants, including the reactors we’re watching today, and on Monday offered its “emergency help” to the utility and the Japanese government). TEPCO also has a history of obfuscation and falsification when it comes to safety.
In 2007, for example, in a post entitled “Nuke Danger in Japan,” I reported on a major leak of radioactive fuel that occured at a TEPCO’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in Niigata after an earthquake there. According to The Australian (July 25, 2007), 12 hours after the quake triggered a series of accidents at the plant, a senior Japanese government official hauled TEPCO’s president into his office “for a rare and humiliating verbal caning.” The official was “furious” because TEPCO management had “initially misled his officials — and not for the first time, either — about the extent of breakdowns at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, the world’s largest nuclear electricity-generating complex.” The paper continued:

The magnitude 6.8 quake 10 km offshore from the Honshu west coast plant caused subsidence of the main structure, ruptured water pipes, started a fire that took five hours to extinguish, and triggered small radioactive discharges into the atmosphere and sea.

Japan has had reactors shut and superficially damaged by earthquakes before, nuclear power stations have had safety failures before, and TEPCO management has been caught before covering up its plant problems. But this was the first time all three circumstances had coincided. This was the nearest thing Japan had seen to genpatsu-shinsai (a nuclear power station earthquake disaster).
Had the epicentre been 10km to the southwest and at magnitude 7, claims eminent seismologist Katsuhiko Ishibashi, Kashiwazaki City would have experienced the real thing — a nuclear plant emergency, possibly a damaged reactor, breaking out in the destruction and chaos of a population-centre earthquake.

That is essentially what is happening now at TEPCO’s Fukushima complex. But the 2007 incident also brought in the IAEA:

Within 24 hours, International Atomic Energy Agency director-general Mohamed ElBaradei had swished his own cane. He made Amari a polite but insistent ”offer” that the UN nuclear safeguards agency’s inspectors assist Japan’s Nuclear Safety Commission with a ”fully transparent” review of the accident and measures needed to guard against a recurrence….This was the first time in El Baradei’s decade as chief of the agency — a term characterised by his boasts about the nuclear power industry’s excellent safety record post-Chernobyl 1986 — the IAEA had intervened so directly and publicly.

After the incident, Reuters commented:

Japan’s nuclear industry has been tarnished by cover-ups of accidents and fudged safety records. The flow of bad news this week, including TEPCO’s admission that the amount of radiation in water that leaked into the ocean was more than first estimated, has done nothing to ease concerns.”

The continuing credibility problems at TEPCO, and a little more about its history, were spelled out this past weekend by veteran Asia reporters Mark Magnier and Barbara Demick in the Los Angeles Times:

As many people here are well aware (TEPCO) has a history of not being forthcoming about nuclear safety issues, particularly those surrounding earthquake-related dangers. In 2003, all 17 of its nuclear plants were shut down temporarily after a scandal over falsified safety-inspection reports. It ran into trouble again in 2006, when it emerged that coolant-water data at two plants had been falsified in the 1980s.
TEPCO’s activities reached scandalous proportions in 2002, when an employee from GE revealed to the Japanese government that TEPCO had been falsifying its records of inspections of its nuclear power plants and hiding the facts for more than 10 years. According to a September 14, 2002, story in The Daily Yomiuri, Japan’s largest-circulation newspaper:

The case came to light only after a U.S. employee of a subsidiary of General Electric Co., who inspected nuclear reactors together with TEPCO engineers, tipped off the International Trade and Industry Ministry, the predecessor of the present Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry, two years ago.

The Yomiuri also revealed that MITI itself had conspired with TEPCO to bury the information later revealed by the GE whistleblower.
Over the weekend, I began poking around in TEPCO’s website to find anything about the scandals. I found this rather interesting document, entitled “Lessons Learned from the TEPCO Nuclear Power Scandal.” It appears to be something that was required under a legal settlement between the company and the government, and spells out in detail the utility’s misconduct over the years. I found this passage particularly revealing, and quite apropos considering what’s happened over the last 48 hours at the Fukushima reactor:


Background to Cases of Misconduct


?Nuclear engineers’ over-confidence of their nuclear knowlegee
?The engineers’ conservative mentality to avoid reporting problems to the national government as long as they believed that safety was secured.
At a press conference today, Aileen Mioko Smith with Green Action in Kyoto stressed again the difficulty of getting straight information from the government and TEPCO. Hopefully, the company’s promises to improve its disclosure policies, as spelled out in its own document, will bear fruit over the days and weeks to come.
Download: Lessons Learned from the TEPCO Nuclear Power Scandal
UPDATE: TEPCO delayed its initial response to the Fukushima disaster due to “concerns over damaging valuable power assets and by initial passivity on the part of the government,” the Wall Street Journal reported March 19:

The plant’s operator—Tokyo Electric Power Co., or Tepco—considered using seawater from the nearby coast to cool one of its six reactors at least as early as last Saturday morning, the day after the quake struck. But it didn’t do so until that evening, after the prime minister ordered it following an explosion at the facility. Tepco didn’t begin using seawater at other reactors until Sunday.

Tepco was reluctant to use seawater because it worried about hurting its long-term investment in the complex, say people involved with the efforts. Seawater, which can render a nuclear reactor permanently inoperable, now is at the center of efforts to keep the plant under control.


Tepco “hesitated because it tried to protect its assets,” said Akira Omoto, a former Tepco executive and a member of the Japan Atomic Energy Commission, an official advisory body involved in the effort to tame the plant. Both Tepco and government officials had good reason not to use saltwater, Mr. Omoto added. Early on, nuclear fuel rods were still under cooling water and undamaged, he said, adding, “it’s understandable because injecting seawater into the fuel vessel renders it unusable.”

...... to be continued

 

[Analis]

......continued

replyquote 16 May 2011 03:53
PM tuxair
founder 1068 posts 1 permalink


Japan’s TEPCO: a history of nuclear disaster cover-ups
By Mike Head
17 March 2011
The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) is the conglomerate at the centre of Japan’s nuclear radiation emergency at Fukushima. Its operations over the past several decades epitomise the government-backed pursuit of corporate profit, at the direct expense of lives, health and safety.
TEPCO is the fourth largest power company in the world, and the biggest in Asia, operating 17 nuclear reactors and supplying one-third of Japan’s electricity. It has a long, documented history of serious safety breaches, systemic cover-ups of potentially fatal disasters, persecution of whistleblowers, suppression of popular opposition and use of its economic and advertising clout to silence criticism.
Among the company’s record of more than 200 proven falsifications of safety inspection reports are several relating to the stricken Fukushima Daiichi facility itself. In 2002, TEPCO admitted to falsifying reports about cracks that had been detected in core shrouds at reactors number 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, as far back as 1993.
The current crisis at Fukushima, caused by last Friday’s magnitude 9 earthquake, is not the company’s first quake-related breakdown. In 2007, a much smaller 6.8-magnitude tremor caused a fire and radiation leaks that shut down TEPCO’s seven-reactor Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant, the world’s biggest. The company later admitted that the plant had not been built to withstand such shocks.
TEPCO’s record is a case study in the complicity of successive Japanese governments and regulatory agencies over the past 40 years in the safety failures of nuclear power companies. With the backing of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which ruled Japan virtually continuously from 1955, when it was formed, to 2009, the business elite aggressively pursued the construction of more than 50 nuclear plants over the objections of residents and environmentalists, in order to secure the energy needs of Japanese capitalism, despite the patent dangers of doing so in one of the world’s most earthquake-prone zones.
The known nuclear cover-ups—undoubtedly just the tip of the iceberg—began to emerge in 1995. In that year, an official falsification of the extent of a sodium leak and fire at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency’s Monju fast-breeder reactor caused public outrage. It was revealed that Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation (PNC), the agency then in charge of Monju, had altered reports, edited a videotape taken immediately after the accident, and issued a gag order to employees. After a long series of court battles, the government allowed the reactor to restart last year.
In 1999, one of Japan’s worst nuclear accidents occurred at the Tokaimura uranium processing plant, 120 kilometres north of Tokyo. An uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction at the plant, operated by JCO, a subsidiary of Sumitomo Metal Mining, killed two employees and leaked radioactivity over the countryside. Fifty-five workers were exposed to radiation and 300,000 people ordered to stay indoors, after the circumvention of safety standards caused a leak. Government officials later said safety equipment at the plant had been missing.
Three years later, TEPCO was exposed as falsifying safety data, including at the ageing Fukushima Daiichi facility. Initially, the company admitted 29 cases of falsification. Eventually, however, it admitted to 200 occasions, over more than two decades between 1977 and 2002, involving the submission of false technical data to authorities. According to the Nuclear Industrial Safety Agency (NISA), TEPCO had attempted to hide cracks in reactor vessel shrouds in 13 units, including Fukushima Daiichi (6 reactors), Fukushima Daini (4 reactors), and Kashiwazaki-Kariwa (7 reactors).
TEPCO’s wrongdoings were only revealed as a result of whistle-blowing by a former engineer at General Electric (GE), a company with close connections to TEPCO. GE built the plants and has been contracted by TEPCO to carry out inspection and operational matters for decades. Two years earlier, the engineer had reported the safety frauds to the relevant ministry, MITI, the forerunner of the current Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), only to have the government supply his name to TEPCO and conspire with the company to bury the information.

Hitachi, which conducted the air tightness checks for TEPCO, was also implicated in the manipulation of test results. On two occasions, the pressure readings in Fukushima’s No 1 reactor were unstable, so workers were instructed to inject air into the container to make it appear that pressure was being maintained.


Nevertheless, relying on TEPCO’s own calculations, NISA maintained that there should be no problem regarding the safety of the plants. The agency inspects nuclear plants only every 13 months, and leaves the inspection of the shrouds and pumps around the reactor cores to each company.

The LDP government feigned concern at these blatant safety breaches, with Seiji Murat, Vice Minister for Economy, Trade and Industry, declaring the company had “betrayed the public’s trust over nuclear energy”. TEPCO’s senior executives duly resigned, and their successors formally pledged to take all necessary measures to prevent any further fraud. By the end of 2005, generation had been restarted at all suspended plants, with government approval.

A little over a year later, in March 2007, the company announced that an internal investigation had revealed a large number of unreported incidents. These included an unexpected unit criticality in 1978 and additional systematic false reporting, which had not been uncovered in 2002. Once more, the firm was publicly remorseful. “We apologise from the bottom of our heart for causing anxiety to the public and local residents,” TEPCO vice president Katsutoshi Chikudate said. The company was permitted to keep operating.

Several months later, in July 2007, the 6.8 quake that shut down TEPCO’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant demonstrated the real nature of the company’s assurances. The earthquake, 10 kilometres offshore from the Honshu west coast plant, caused subsidence of the main structure, ruptured water pipes, started a fire that took five hours to extinguish, and triggered radioactive discharges into the atmosphere and sea. The company initially said there was no release of radiation, but admitted later that the quake had released radiation and had spilled radioactive water into the Sea of Japan. Seismologist Katsuhiko Ishibashi warned that had the epicentre been 10 kilometres to the southwest and at magnitude 7, Kashiwazaki City would have experienced a major emergency.

Amid a public outcry, the government again put on a display of anger. According to media reports, a senior Japanese government official hauled TEPCO’s president into his office “for a rare and humiliating verbal caning”. The official was “furious” because TEPCO management had “initially misled his officials—and not for the first time, either—about the extent of breakdowns at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa”.

The 2007 closure of TEPCO’s largest nuclear plant contributed to the company posting its first ever losses over the past two years. It is now the world’s most indebted utility, with current net borrowings of $88 billion. This financial crisis has driven management to slash costs and boost output from its other plants, no doubt also at the expense of safety. TEPCO’s “2020 Vision” document pledges to “accelerate cost reduction efforts” and raise the non-fossil fuel (mainly nuclear) proportion of its generation from 33 to 50 percent.

The current meltdown and radiation emergency at Fukushima is the inevitable product of the protracted record of TEPCO-government collaboration, which is being continued by the present Democratic Party of Japan administration. Prime Minister Naoto Kan, like his LDP predecessors, has publicly professed outrage at TEPCO’s repeated cover-ups in this latest—and by far the most serious—disaster. Reuters reported: “Japan’s prime minister was furious with executives at a power company at the centre of the nuclear crisis for taking so long to inform his office about a blast at its stricken reactor complex, demanding ‘what the hell is going on?’.

Kan’s “fury” is purely for public consumption. In recent months, the Kan government has stepped up a campaign to help Japanese power companies, led by TEPCO, to win contracts to build nuclear reactors overseas. As part of that push, METI, the parent ministry of the nuclear safety agency NISA, has boasted that Japan maintains a “healthy regulatory environment”. Last August, TEPCO chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata, together with other Japanese power company executives, was part of a delegation, headed by then METI minister, Masayuki Naoshima, which signed deals to build two nuclear reactors in Vietnam.

With the government’s backing, TEPCO also remains closely interlocked with other giant Japanese companies. Just weeks ago, on February 23, TEPCO and Mitsubishi Corporation formed a partnership to take over the management of Electricity Generating Public Company Limited (EGCO), one of the largest power companies in Thailand.

The company’s recent expansion extends to the US. In May 2010, TEPCO announced an agreement for the planned enlargement of the South Texas Project nuclear plant, in partnership with Nuclear Innovation North America LLC (NINA), a nuclear development company jointly owned by NRG Energy, Inc. and Toshiba.

Within Japan, TEPCO is planning to open six new nuclear reactors, including units 7 and 8 of the Fukushima Daiichi plant (in 2014 and 2015), and units 1 and 2 of the Higashidori plant, facing the Pacific Ocean in northern Japan (in 2015 and 2018). Last month, residents protested as the company commenced construction, in the dark of night, on two nuclear plants at Iwai Island, in the Inland Sea south of Honshu, Japan’s main island, and close to Kyushu island, where a volcano burst this week.

Scenes of the Iwai Island protest were broadcast on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s 7.30 television program on March 15. The footage was recorded by documentary film-maker Hitomi Kamanaka, who resigned from the state broadcaster NHK after it refused to run her material criticising the country’s nuclear power companies.

TEPCO has been shielded by governments and the media for decades because, as the World Socialist Web Site has pointed out (“The implications of the Japanese catastrophe”), the Japanese ruling elite turned to the breakneck development of nuclear power in the late 1960s and early 1970s to shield itself from dependence on imported oil. Now more than 40 years-old, TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi plant was the very first to begin operational generation, on March 26, 1970.

TEPCO’s litany of deliberate violations of the most elementary safety standards, enabled by the collusion of one government after another, is a graphic demonstration of the intolerable danger posed to the world’s population by the capitalist economic order itself, based as it is on the extraction of private profit at all costs.

......
to be continued

 

[Analis]

......continued

replyquote 16 May 2011 03:56
PM tuxair
founder 1068 posts 1 permalink


The True History of TEPCO
In face of the nuclear desaster unfolding in NE Japan, I searched a bit the web to find more about TEPCO, the culprit. I was suuccessful and found TEPCO's history, its cosy relationship with the former ruling party, LDP , and it's Mafia-style management. I hope CD permits this relatively long story because it was just thrown off a Japanese web site.

Since it's a longer story, I post it in several parts:


The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) is the conglomerate at the centre of Japan’s nuclear radiation emergency at Fukushima. Its operations over the past several decades epitomise the government-backed pursuit of corporate profit, at the direct expense of lives, health and safety.

TEPCO is the fourth largest power company in the world, and the biggest in Asia, operating 17 nuclear reactors and supplying one-third of Japan’s electricity. It has a long, documented history of serious safety breaches, systemic cover-ups of potentially fatal disasters, persecution of whistleblowers, suppression of popular opposition and use of its economic and advertising clout to silence criticism.

Among the company’s record of more than 200 proven falsifications of safety inspection reports are several relating to the stricken Fukushima Daiichi facility itself. In 2002, TEPCO admitted to falsifying reports about cracks that had been detected in core shrouds at reactors number 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, as far back as 1993.

The current crisis at Fukushima, caused by last Friday’s magnitude 9 earthquake, is not the company’s first quake-related breakdown. In 2007, a much smaller 6.8-magnitude tremor caused a fire and radiation leaks that shut down TEPCO’s seven-reactor Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant, the world’s biggest. The company later admitted that the plant had not been built to withstand such shocks.

TEPCO’s record is a case study in the complicity of successive Japanese governments and regulatory agencies over the past 40 years in the safety failures of nuclear power companies. With the backing of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which ruled Japan virtually continuously from 1955, when it was formed, to 2009, the business elite aggressively pursued the construction of more than 50 nuclear plants over the objections of residents and environmentalists, in order to secure the energy needs of Japanese capitalism, despite the patent dangers of doing so in one of the world’s most earthquake-prone zones.

The known nuclear cover-ups—undoubtedly just the tip of the iceberg—began to emerge in 1995. In that year, an official falsification of the extent of a sodium leak and fire at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency’s Monju fast-breeder reactor caused public outrage. It was revealed that Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation (PNC), the agency then in charge of Monju, had altered reports, edited a videotape taken immediately after the accident, and issued a gag order to employees. After a long series of court battles, the government allowed the reactor to restart last year.

In 1999, one of Japan’s worst nuclear accidents occurred at the Tokaimura uranium processing plant, 120 kilometres north of Tokyo. An uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction at the plant, operated by JCO, a subsidiary of Sumitomo Metal Mining, killed two employees and spewed radioactive neutrons over the countryside. Fifty-five workers were exposed to radiation and 300,000 people ordered to stay indoors, after the circumvention of safety standards caused a leak. Government officials later said safety equipment at the plant had been missing.

Three years later, TEPCO was exposed as falsifying safety data, including at the ageing Fukushima Daiichi facility. Initially, the company admitted 29 cases of falsification. Eventually, however, it admitted to 200 occasions, over more than two decades between 1977 and 2002, involving the submission of false technical data to authorities. According to the Nuclear Industrial Safety Agency (NISA), TEPCO had attempted to hide cracks in reactor vessel shrouds in 13 units, including Fukushima Daiichi (6 reactors), Fukushima Daini (4 reactors), and Kashiwazaki-Kariwa (7 reactors).

TEPCO’s wrongdoings were only revealed as a result of whistle-blowing by a former engineer at General Electric (GE), a company with close connections to TEPCO. GE built the plants and has been contracted by TEPCO to carry out inspection and operational matters for decades. Two years earlier, the engineer had reported the safety frauds to the relevant ministry, MITI, the forerunner of the current Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), only to have the government supply his name to TEPCO and conspire with the company to bury the information.

Hitachi, which conducted the air tightness checks for TEPCO, was also implicated in the manipulation of test results. On two occasions, the pressure readings in Fukushima’s No 1 reactor were unstable, so workers were instructed to inject air into the container to make it appear that pressure was being maintained.


Nevertheless, relying on TEPCO’s own calculations, NISA maintained that there should be no problem regarding the safety of the plants. The agency inspects nuclear plants only every 13 months, and leaves the inspection of the shrouds and pumps around the reactor cores to each company.


The LDP government feigned concern at these blatant safety breaches, with Seiji Murata, Vice Minister for Economy, Trade and Industry, declaring the company had “betrayed the public’s trust over nuclear energy”. TEPCO’s senior executives duly resigned, and their successors formally pledged to take all necessary measures to prevent any further fraud. By the end of 2005, generation had been restarted at all suspended plants, with government approval.

A little over a year later, in March 2007, the company announced that an internal investigation had revealed a large number of unreported incidents. These included an unexpected unit criticality in 1978 and additional systematic false reporting, which had not been uncovered in 2002. Once more, the firm was publicly remorseful. “We apologise from the bottom of our heart for causing anxiety to the public and local residents,” TEPCO vice president Katsutoshi Chikudate said. The company was permitted to keep operating.


Several months later, in July 2007, the 6.8 quake that shut down TEPCO’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant demonstrated the real nature of the company’s assurances. The earthquake, 10 kilometres offshore from the Honshu west coast plant (near Niigata), caused subsidence of the main structure, ruptured water pipes, started a fire that took five hours to extinguish, and triggered radioactive discharges into the atmosphere and sea. The company initially said there was no release of radiation, but admitted later that the quake had released radiation and had spilled radioactive water into the Sea of Japan. Seismologist Katsuhiko Ishibashi warned that had the epicentre been 10 kilometres to the southwest and at magnitude 7, Kashiwazaki City would have experienced a major emergency.

Amid a public outcry, the government again put on a display of anger. According to media reports, a senior Japanese government official hauled TEPCO’s president into his office “for a rare and humiliating verbal caning”. The official was “furious” because TEPCO management had “initially misled his officials—and not for the first time, either—about the extent of breakdowns at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa”.


The 2007 closure of TEPCO’s largest nuclear plant contributed to the company posting its first ever losses over the past two years. It is now the world’s most indebted utility, with current net borrowings of $88 billion. This financial crisis has driven management to slash costs and boost output from its other plants, no doubt also at the expense of safety. TEPCO’s “2020 Vision” document pledges to “accelerate cost reduction efforts” and raise the non-fossil fuel (mainly nuclear) proportion of its generation from 33 to 50 percent.

The current meltdown and radiation emergency at Fukushima is the inevitable product of the protracted record of TEPCO-government collaboration, which is being continued by the present Democratic Party of Japan administration. Prime Minister Naoto Kan, like his LDP predecessors, has publicly professed outrage at TEPCO’s repeated cover-ups in this latest—and by far the most serious—disaster. Agencies reported: “Japan’s prime minister was furious with executives at a power company at the centre of the nuclear crisis for taking so long to inform his office about a blast at its stricken reactor complex, demanding ‘what the hell is going on?’.

Kan’s “fury” is purely for public consumption. In recent months, the Kan government has stepped up a campaign to help Japanese power companies, led by TEPCO, to win contracts to build nuclear reactors overseas. As part of that push, METI, the parent ministry of the nuclear safety agency NISA, has boasted that Japan maintains a “healthy regulatory environment”. Last August, TEPCO chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata, together with other Japanese power company executives, was part of a delegation, headed by then METI minister, Masayuki Naoshima, which signed deals to build two nuclear reactors in Vietnam.

With the government’s backing, TEPCO also remains closely interlocked with other giant Japanese companies. Just weeks ago, on February 23, TEPCO and Mitsubishi Corporation formed a partnership to take over the management of Electricity Generating Public Company Limited (EGCO), one of the largest power companies in Thailand.

The company’s recent expansion extends to the US. In May 2010, TEPCO announced an agreement for the planned enlargement of the South Texas Project nuclear plant, in partnership with Nuclear Innovation North America LLC (NINA), a nuclear development company jointly owned by NRG Energy, Inc. and Toshiba.


Within Japan, TEPCO is planning to open six new nuclear reactors, including units 7 and 8 of the Fukushima Daiichi plant (in 2014 and 2015), and units 1 and 2 of the Higashidori plant, facing the Pacific Ocean in northern Japan (in 2015 and 2018). Last month, residents protested as the company commenced construction, in the dark of night, on two nuclear plants at Iwai Island, in the Inland Sea south of Honshu, Japan’s main island, and close to Kyushu island, where a volcano burst this week.

Scenes of the Iwai Island protest were broadcast on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s 7.30 television program on March 15. The footage was recorded by documentary film-maker Hitomi Kamanaka, who resigned from the state broadcaster NHK after it refused to run her material criticising the country’s nuclear power companies.


TEPCO has been shielded by governments and the media for decades because the Japanese ruling elite turned to the breakneck development of nuclear power in the late 1960s and early 1970s to shield itself from dependence on imported oil. Now more than 40 years-old, TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi plant was the very first to begin operational generation, on March 26, 1970.


TEPCO’s litany of deliberate violations of the most elementary safety standards, enabled by the collusion of one government after another, is a graphic demonstration of the intolerable danger posed to the world’s population by the capitalist economic order itself, based as it is on the extraction of private profit at all costs.

...... to be continued

 

[Analis]

......continued

replyquote 16 May 2011 04:21
PM tuxair
founder 1068 posts 1 permalink

TEPCO to be charged with Culpable Homicide? A Corrupt, Dishonest company responsible for Fukushima disaster
Posted by Dawn Wires in Politics on March 15, 2011 4:36 pm

Ten years back, I studied Nuclear physics. The most elementary lesson that we learnt was the strength of the nuclear reactors and come hell, they dont break down. Nor can the power feeding them can shut down. Even if Noah days of floods return to submerge the reactor, they still will work and stop in an orderly fashion without radioactive blasts.
Well many may say that it was the Tsunami that was responsible for the current crisis. We defer as usual from the rest. We have a history to be different and it takes time for the rest of the bloggers to come around and see the truth. Just a case in example: When the Japanese government first reported of the reactor breach at Fukushima, we were probably the first and only ones on internet who stood out and said that all 6 reactors are at risk and matter of hours before a full scale radiation results. Well it took 24 hours for the Japanese to understand the reality and accept that they were truly in an unsurmountable crisis.
Was the Tsunami responsible for Fukushina Nuclear disaster? NO.
The Fukushima reactors built by GE was going to decommissioned in February 2011 after the design duration and useful life had been completed. Mysteriously, TEPCO extended the commissioning after due certification by one of the most dangerous firms in the world, General Electric (forget Jack Welsh and his stupid saying “BE NO 1 or No2 else exit the business, we have proof that it is corrupt company which uses bribes to win contract and then build sub standard utilities esp in emerging markets where it has an alibi to get away with it as they legal jurisdiction is in the US)

We already carried among the first detailed reports on why the Fukushima blasts can sound the death knell for General Electric (quoted by CNN TV).

We demand that TEPCO make public the documents and exact reasons on why the Fukushima reactors were commissioned again esp when Japan is well provided for power and electricity.
The failure of emergency systems at Japan’s nuclear plants comes as no surprise to those of us who have worked in the field. Nuclear plants the world over must be certified for what is called “SQ” or “Seismic Qualification.” The owners swear that all components are designed for the maximum conceivable shaking event, be it from an earthquake or anything else. One way to get the SQ lie is do a self attestation and lie in the face. TEPCO was caught by the US government lying on SQ in 1988, at the Shoreham plant in New York. Correcting the SQ problem at Shoreham would have cost a cool billion, so engineers were told to change the tests from ‘failed’ to ‘passed.’
Stone & Webster put in the fraud safety report which now is the nuclear unit of Shaw Construction which will work with Tokyo Electric to build the Texas plant (Obama $4billion Nuclear proposal)
It is now commonly reported that Tsunami disabled the pumps needed to cool the reactors and hence coolants could not be used to cool the reactors. These safety back-up systems are the ‘EDGs’ in nuke-speak: Emergency Diesel Generators. That they didn’t work in an emergency is ludicrous and is like a fire department telling us they couldn’t save a building because “it was on fire.” (Greg Palast article)
Coming to the design of the reactors? Well they withstood the pressure for 40 years so general Electric may not be at fault. But why were the reactors life extended when documents clearly indicate their useful life to be 40 years.
TEPCO has a history of corruption and lying.
2002

TEPCO lied over cracks at nuke plants Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) repeatedly lied when the government questioned the firm about cracks at its nuclear power plants, sources said Tuesday.
Mainichi Interactive
Heads to roll over reactor cracks Tokyo Electric Power Company’s (TEPCO) president and chairman are set to resign over the covered up of cracks at three nuclear power plants, sources said Saturday.

Infact under intense pressure to reveal the truth regarding Fukushima, Japanese PM has decided to censor all information regarding what is happening at Fukushima which is why the conflicting reports that are emerging
out of Tokyo.

“Following a high-level meeting called by the lame-duck prime minister, Japanese agencies are no longer releasing independent reports without prior approval from the top,” writes Shimatsu. “The censorship is being carried out following the imposition of the Article 15 Emergency Law.”

– CCTV China State run TV
TEPCO again lied 2007

Tokyo Electric Power apologized for delays and errors in announcing the extent of damage at the plant in this northwestern coastal city, which was struck Monday by a magnitude 6.8 earthquake. The company also said that tremors had tipped over “several hundred” barrels of radioactive waste, not 100 as it reported Tuesday, and that the lids had opened on “a few dozen” of those barrels.
Tokyo Electric said it had found some 50 problems at the plant caused by the earthquake, including loose exhaust ducts and damaged pipes. In a statement, the company said it had miscalculated the level of radioactivity of the leaked water, 317 gallons of which flowed into the Sea of Japan. However, it said the water’s level of radioactivity was still far too low to harm the environment.
Television scenes showed Tokyo Electric’s president, Tsunehisa Katsumata, bowing low in apology during a visit to the area on Wednesday. “We will start an investigation from the ground up,” he pledged.
The company’s slow pace in revealing the plant’s problems has brought criticism from Japanese all the way up to the prime minister and fed public fears about the safety of nuclear power. On Wednesday, the mayor of Kashiwazaki, Hiroshi Aida, chimed in, ordering the plant to stop operations until safety could be ensured.
It was later revealed that massive amount of radioactive material had leaked into the sea water and which was till date not acknowledged by TEPCO.

God has a way to teach such organisation and people a lesson they will never forget. Unfortunately the innocent get caught in the cross fires.
Is TEPCO hiding about Fukushima? We believe so. And before the last is written about Fukushima, we want TEPCO to answer these basic questions. Masataka Shimizu, president of TEPCO, needs to tell come out with the absolute truth.
With the latest Obama package of $4billion to build nuclear power plants in Texas, a major portion is being built by TEPCO. We cannot allow this to happen and Obama needs to put all contracts with TEPCO under review. In fact TEPCO may be culpable in the murder and expose of radiation to innocent Japanese.


replyquote16 May 2011 04:26 PM dave
member 3 posts 0 permalink Wow, that is a pretty bad track record.

[......]

replyquote 20 May 2011 08:50
PM tuxair
founder 1068 posts 0 permalink
Tepco hid 7 1/2-hour criticality accident?
Kyodo News Friday, March 23, 2007

Five dislodged control rods probably caused a 7 1/2-hour criticality accident at a Fukushima nuclear plant run by Tokyo Electric Power Co. in 1978, an internal probe by the utility and the reactor's builder, Toshiba Corp., revealed Thursday.


A probe also uncovered two more cases where a control rod dislodged from a reactor core at the No. 1 plant in Fukushima Prefecture -- the plant's No. 5 reactor in February 1979 and its No. 2 reactor in September 1980. None of the cases was apparently reported to the government, Japan's largest electric power firm said.
On Tuesday, Tepco said two control rods came off at its Fukushima No. 2 nuclear plant's No. 3 reactor in June 1993 and at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant's No. 1 reactor in Niigata Prefecture in April 2000 during suspensions for routine checks.


Neither incident resulted in a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction, according to the Tokyo-based utility, which had to shut down all of its reactors in 2003 when it was revealed it had covered up flaws.


In the 1978 case in Fukushima, the problem at the No. 3 reactor had "caused criticality," Tokyo Electric officials said, quoting a source familiar with the case.


The uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction may have lasted up to 7 1/2 hours, according to the investigation.


"We have so far not been able to confirm data that back up the testimony, because it is an incident from a long time ago," an official of the utility said.


All three incidents that emerged Thursday apparently took place during regular checkups and in the course of work to fasten control rods, utility officials said.


Last week, it was revealed that in 1999 one of Hokuriku Electric Power Co.'s reactors in Ishikawa Prefecture suffered a self-sustaining chain reaction that lasted 15 minutes after control rods fell off.


The accident caused no harm to workers or outside effects.


Since the revelation, a number of electric utilities have come forward with their own cases of control-rod detachments at their nuclear plants.


Meanwhile, critics are questioning the government's past nuclear plant checks, arguing the recent spate of coverups proves they were ineffective.


Teruyuki Matsushita, 58, a former municipal assembly member in Mihama, a Fukui Prefecture town hosting Kansai Electric Power Co.'s Mihama plant, said locals must stand up against the state's energy policy, even at the expense of huge local subsidies host towns are annually receiving.


replyquote20 May 2011 09:34 PM

 

[johncbdg1]

Just think of how much Fukushima Radiation,you been drinking and eating Fukushima yes you me everyone.

The Fukushima Radiation is Spreading Worldwide.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6Yuj-l8XTY


CNN finally reveals how dangerous Fukushima is
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi1LAQL_ ... re=related




Radiation sickness is illness and symptoms
http://www.umm.edu/ency/article/000026.htm

UK nuclear industry's Compensation Scheme for Radiation-Linked Diseases.
http://www.csrld.org.uk/

 

[Analis]

This situation is not restricted to Japan. The recent Fort Calhoun incident gives a good ilustration. The facility was flooded despite that the operator had stated that it could whistand a 500 year flooding event (but maybe their definition of 500 years is different of ours...). The NRC had stated that the plant was not adequately prepared, but had the flooding not happened, we would probably know little or none of it. These matters are settled in the corridors of power, out of public scrutiny.

http://poleshift.ning.com/profiles/blog ... e=activity

[......]

Flooding risk

A flood assessment performed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2010 indicated that the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Generating Station, "did not have adequate procedures to protect the intake structure and auxiliary building against external flooding events."[6] The assessment also indicated that the facility was not adequately prepared for a "worst-case" flooding scenario. A number of potential flood water penetration points were discovered that could have impacted the raw feed water supply to the cooling system, the axilliary water supply and main switchgear (electrical) room. By early 2011, corrective measures had been implemented.[6]



Events

On June 6, 2011 the Omaha Public Power District, as required by Nuclear Regulatory Commission guidelines, declared a level 1 anomaly (minimal level incident on a 1-4 scale) due to flooding of the Missouri River.[7] The Missouri River is above flood stage and is expected to rise further and remain above flood stage for several weeks to a month. Contractors have been busy installing sandbags and earthen berms to protect the facility from flooding.[7] According to officials, the plant was built to withstand a 500 year flooding event and though by June 14, 2011, much of the facility was surrounded by the swollen Missouri River, Omaha Public Power District officals were confident that enough redundancies were in place to ensure adequate safety.[8]

On June 7, 2011, an electrical component in a switcher room caused a small fire with poisonous gases and Halon extinguisher activation which forced a partial evacuation.[9] The fire was no longer active when the fire brigade arrived and according to officials, the public was never in any danger, however in response, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission declared an alert, which is a level 2 incident.[10] The fire impacted a pump which is used to recirculate coolant water through the spent fuel pool. The pump was offline for an hour but backup equipment wasn't needed as estimated time to boiling temperature was 88,3 hours.[11] The evacuation was the first at the facility since 1992, when 20,000 US gallons (76,000 l; 17,000 imp gal) of coolant leaked into a containment building from the reactor.[12][13]

 

[OldTimeRadio]

It struck me very early on in the nuclear crisis that getting accurate news reporting from the Japanese government was very much like attempting to obtain the same commodity from Soviet Russia during the bad old days of Josef Stalin.

I'd expected so much more from a democracy.

 

[Analis]

Japan didn't make many progress since Chernobyl. But it would probably not be very different in other supposedly democratic countries - as their own behaviour since 11-3 evidenced.

New explosions on 26 June ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9-Kaop- ... ture=share

 

[Analis]

For example, it is difficult to know exactely what is happening at Fort Calhoun :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aWwfiZJ ... r_embedded

There is a danger that the pool could be inundated, with all its waste. If it happened, consequences would be dire.
A rather reassuring take :
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/27/scien ... .html?_r=2
Another article, more critical but probably more partial :
http://nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-news ... ant-report

Another recent incident, which could have had serious consequences :

http://www.timesunion.com/news/article/ ... 443166.php

Los Alamos nuclear lab under siege from wildfire
P. SOLOMON BANDA, Associated Press, SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN, Associated Press
Updated 05:32 a.m., Friday, July 1, 2011
LOS ALAMOS, N.M. (AP) — A wildfire near the desert birthplace of the atomic bomb advanced on the Los Alamos laboratory and thousands of outdoor drums of plutonium-contaminated waste Tuesday as authorities stepped up efforts to protect the site and monitor the air for radiation.

Officials at the nation's premier nuclear-weapons lab gave assurances that dangerous materials were safely stored and capable of withstanding flames from the 95-square-mile fire, which at one point was as close as 50 feet from the grounds.

A small patch of land at the laboratory caught fire Monday before firefighters quickly put it out. Teams were on alert to pounce on any new blazes and spent the day removing brush and low-hanging tree limbs from the lab's perimeter.

"We are throwing absolutely everything at this that we got," Democratic Sen. Tom Udall of New Mexico said in Los Alamos.

The fire has forced the evacuation of the entire city of Los Alamos, population 11,000, cast giant plumes of smoke over the region and raised fears among nuclear watchdogs that it will reach as many as 30,000 55-gallon drums of plutonium-contaminated waste.

"The concern is that these drums will get so hot that they'll burst. That would put this toxic material into the plume. It's a concern for everybody," said Joni Arends, executive director of the Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, an anti-nuclear group.

Arends' organization also worried that the fire could stir up nuclear-contaminated soil on lab property where experiments were conducted years ago. Burrowing animals have brought that contamination to the surface, she said.

Lab officials said there was very little risk of the fire reaching the drums of low-level nuclear waste, since the flames would have to jump through canyons first. Officials also stood ready to coat the drums with fire-resistant foam if the blaze got too close.

Lab spokeswoman Lisa Rosendorf said the drums contain Cold War-era waste that the lab sends away in weekly shipments for storage. She said the drums were on a paved area with few trees nearby. As of midday Tuesday, the flames were about two miles from the material.

"These drums are designed to a safety standard that would withstand a wildland fire worse than this one," Rosendorf said.

Los Alamos employs about 15,000 people, covers more than 36 square miles, includes about 2,000 buildings at nearly four dozen sites and plays a vital role in the nation's nuclear program.

The lab was created during World War II as part of the Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. It produced the weapons that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In the decades since, the lab has evolved into a major scientific and nuclear research facility. It works on extending the life of aging nuclear bombs, tests warheads, produces triggers for nuclear weapons and operates supercomputers and particle accelerators.

The lab also conducts research on such things as climate change and the development of a scanner for airports to detect explosive liquids. The lab's supercomputer was used in designing an HIV vaccine.

Lab officials gave assurances that buildings housing key research and scientific facilities were safe because they have been fireproofed over the years, especially since a 2000 blaze that raged through the area but caused no damage to the lab. Trees and brush were thinned over the past several years, and key buildings were surrounded with gravel to keep flames at bay.

Many of the buildings were also constructed to meet strict standards for nuclear safety, and aggressive wildfires were taken into account, lab spokesman Kevin Roark said.

"We'll pre-treat with foam if necessary, but we really want the buildings to stand on their own for the most part. That is exactly how they've been designed. Especially the ones holding anything that is of high value or high risk," said Los Alamos County Assistant Fire Chief Mike Thompson.

Teams from the National Nuclear Security Administration's Radiological Assistance Program were headed to the scene to help assess any hazards.

Lab officials said they were closely watching at least 60 air monitors for radiation and other hazards. The New Mexico Environment Department was also monitoring the air, and Udall said he asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to do the same.

The lab has been shut down because of the fire, but authorities said the disruption is unlikely to affect any key experiments. The lab will be closed at least through Wednesday.

The wildfire has destroyed 30 structures near Los Alamos, stirring memories of a devastating blaze in May 2000 that wrecked hundreds of homes and other buildings. About 12,500 residents in and around Los Alamos have been evacuated, an orderly exit that didn't even cause a traffic accident.

Investigators do not know what sparked the fire, although downed power lines were suspected.

The streets of Los Alamos were empty with the exception of emergency vehicles and National Guard Humvees. There were signs that homeowners had left prepared: Propane bottles were placed at the front of driveways and cars were left in the middle of parking lots, away from anything flammable.

Some residents decided to wait out the fire, including Mark Smith, a chemical engineer at Los Alamos. He said he was not worried about flames reaching the lab's sensitive materials.

"The risk of exposure is so small," he said. "I wouldn't sit here and inhale plutonium. I may be crazy, but I'm not dumb."

___

Associated Press writer Barry Massey contributed to this report from Santa Fe, N.M.


Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/news/article/ ... z1Qvrfxf7Q

http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/cr ... 93096.html


http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles ... z1QmU8hFPW

[....]
Indian nation officials reportedly are concerned about the potential release of radioactive material into the air if the fire reaches the 20,000 to 30,000 tons of plutonium-contaminated waste located at the Los Alamos lab. They say the material should have been moved to a safer location.

However, Los Alamos officials counter by saying that the material is stored in drums located on blacktop, with no grass or trees nearby. They say that even if winds threatened to drop burning embers on the drums that firefighters could quickly cover the drums with foam to keep them from igniting.

But critics, including officials at the New Mexico Environment Department, point out that the radioactive material stored in drums is not the only danger. There is also radioactive material in the area left over from World War II-era tests. Critics fear that if those areas catch fire radioactive material will be released into the environment.

Meanwhile, fire officials are moving to flank the east side of the Los Alamos lab to combat the blaze because weather forecasts predict high winds from the southwest for Thursday.

Stocking waste in lightweight, vulnerable buildings is irresponsible. Especially as the region had already been subject to large fires.

 

[Analis]

Other democracies malfunction when it comes to nuclear industry.
Playing down Fukushima from Britain :

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... -fukushima

Nuclear power
Revealed: British government's plan to play down FukushimaInternal emails seen by Guardian show PR campaign was launched to protect UK nuclear plans after tsunami in Japan

Rob Edwards guardian.co.uk, Thursday 30 June 2011 21.36 BST Article history
Government officials launched a PR campaign to ensure the accident at the Fukushima nuclear facility in Japan did not derail plans for new nuclear power stations in the UK. Photograph: AP
British government officials approached nuclear companies to draw up a co-ordinated public relations strategy to play down the Fukushima nuclear accident just two days after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and before the extent of the radiation leak was known.

Internal emails seen by the Guardian show how the business and energy departments worked closely behind the scenes with the multinational companies EDF Energy, Areva and Westinghouse to try to ensure the accident did not derail their plans for a new generation of nuclear stations in the UK.

"This has the potential to set the nuclear industry back globally," wrote one official at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), whose name has been redacted. "We need to ensure the anti-nuclear chaps and chapesses do not gain ground on this. We need to occupy the territory and hold it. We really need to show the safety of nuclear."

Officials stressed the importance of preventing the incident from undermining public support for nuclear power.

The Conservative MP Zac Goldsmith, who sits on the Commons environmental audit committee, condemned the extent of co-ordination between the government and nuclear companies that the emails appear to reveal.

"The government has no business doing PR for the industry and it would be appalling if its departments have played down the impact of Fukushima," he said.

Louise Hutchins, a spokeswoman for Greenpeace, said the emails looked like "scandalous collusion". "This highlights the government's blind obsession with nuclear power and shows neither they, nor the industry, can be trusted when it comes to nuclear," she said.

The Fukushima accident, triggered by the Japan earthquake and tsunami on 11 March, has forced 80,000 people from their homes. Opinion polls suggest it has dented public support for nuclear power in Britain and around the world, with the governments of Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Thailand and Malaysia cancelling planned nuclear power stations in the wake of the accident.

The business department emailed the nuclear firms and their representative body, the Nuclear Industry Association (NIA), on 13 March, two days after the disaster knocked out nuclear plants and their backup safety systems at Fukushima. The department argued it was not as bad as the "dramatic" TV pictures made it look, even though the consequences of the accident were still unfolding and two major explosions at reactors on the site were yet to happen.

"Radiation released has been controlled – the reactor has been protected," said the BIS official, whose name has been blacked out. "It is all part of the safety systems to control and manage a situation like this."

The official suggested that if companies sent in their comments, they could be incorporated into briefs to ministers and government statements. "We need to all be working from the same material to get the message through to the media and the public.

"Anti-nuclear people across Europe have wasted no time blurring this all into Chernobyl and the works," the official told Areva. "We need to quash any stories trying to compare this to Chernobyl."

Japanese officials initially rated the Fukushima accident as level four on the international nuclear event scale, meaning it had "local consequences". But it was raised to level seven on 11 April, officially making it a major accident" and putting it on a par with Chernobyl in 1986.

The Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has released more than 80 emails sent in the weeks after Fukushima in response to requests under freedom of information legislation. They also show:

•?Westinghouse said reported remarks on the cost of new nuclear power stations by the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, were "unhelpful and a little premature".

•?The company admitted its new reactor, AP1000, "was not designed for earthquakes [of] the magnitude of the earthquake in Japan", and would need to be modified for seismic areas such as Japan and California.

•?The head of the DECC's office for nuclear development, Mark Higson, asked EDF to welcome the expected announcement of a safety review by the energy secretary, Chris Huhne, and added: "Not sure if EDF unilaterally asking for a review is wise. Might set off a bidding war."

•?EDF promised to be "sensitive" to how remediation work at a UK nuclear site "might be seen in the light of events in Japan".

•?It also requested that ministers did not delay approval for a new radioactive waste store at the Sizewell nuclear site in Suffolk, but accepting there was a "potential risk of judicial review".

•?The BIS warned it needed "a good industry response showing the safety of nuclear – otherwise it could have adverse consequences on the market".

On 7 April, the office for nuclear development invited companies to attend a meeting at the NIA's headquarters in London. The aim was "to discuss a joint communications and engagement strategy aimed at ensuring we maintain confidence among the British public on the safety of nuclear power stations and nuclear new-build policy in light of recent events at the Fukushima nuclear power plant".

Other documents released by the government's safety watchdog, the office for nuclear regulation, reveal that the text of an announcement on 5 April about the impact of Fukushima on the new nuclear programme was privately cleared with nuclear industry representatives at a meeting the previous week. According to one former regulator, who preferred not to be named, the degree of collusion was "truly shocking".

A spokesman for the DECC and BIS said: "Given the unprecedented events unfolding in Japan, it was appropriate to share information with key stakeholders, particularly those involved in operating nuclear sites. The government was very clear from the outset that it was important not to rush to judgment and that a response should be based on hard evidence. This is why we called on the chief nuclear inspector, Dr Mike Weightman, to provide a robust and evidence-based report."

A DECC source played down the significance of the emails from the unnamed BIS official, saying: "The junior BIS official was not responsible for nuclear policy and his views were irrelevant to ministers' decisions in the aftermath of the Japanese earthquake."

Tom Burke, a former government environmental adviser and visiting professor at Imperial College London, warned that the British government was repeating mistakes made in Japan. "They are too close to industry, concealing problems, rather than revealing and dealing with them," he said.

"I would be much more reassured if DECC had been worrying about how the government would cope with the $200bn-$300bn of liabilities from a catastrophic nuclear accident in Britain."

The government last week confirmed plans for eight new nuclear stations in England and Wales. "If acceptable proposals come forward in appropriate places, they will not face unnecessary holdups," said the energy minister, Charles Hendry.

The NIA did not comment directly on the emails. "We are funded by our member companies to represent their commercial interests and further the compelling case for new nuclear build in the UK," said the association's spokesman.

"We welcome the interim findings of the independent regulator, Dr Mike Weightman, who has reported back to government that UK nuclear reactors are safe."

• This article was amended on 1 July 2011. The original quoted Tom Burke as follows: "I would be much more reassured if DECC had been worrying about how the government would cope with the $200m-$300m of liabilities from a catastrophic nuclear accident in Britain." This has been corrected.

 

[Analis]

And from France :

French minister of Industry Eric BESSON had stated on 12 March that "according to the information available to us, a serious accident but not a nuclear disaster".
http://www.letelegramme.com/ig/generale ... 232334.php

According to the information at their disposal ? Really ? If so, why did 10 Areva's employees leave Japan as soon as 13 March ? Why did the French government ask French firefighters to live the Fukushima area, causing diplomatic tension ?
http://www.lepoint.fr/monde/tokyo-exige ... 662_24.php

(For the record, Areva was fined 40 000 € on 14 October 2010 for having concealed to the nuclear security authority a radioactive leak from the Tricastin plant on 8 July 2008)


And Besson probably won the silliness award when he stated on 12 March that the explosion in reactor 1 had a reassuring cause : the Japanese had deliberately exploded it to release pressure (sic) ! And they were trying to do the same with reactor 3 (re-sic) !!!
http://www.europe1.fr/International/Jap ... on-451839/
"They're trying to do what was succesfull yesterday (saturday) with reactor 1", i. e. "to deliberaly blow up the third layer to lower pressure on the core of the first reactor."
The bigger the lie...

(Certainly, the French authorities are on edge. On 17 June, the same Besson, during an interview with journalist Guy LAGACHE for the TV show Capital, left the set, furious that he had been asked about the problems relating to the security of nuclear plants in France. Well, we should understand him : facing a journalist who, for once, was not groveling to a politician and was asking the right questions, this was really offensive !
The "interview" is worth reading (and watching) :
"-In France, there are sometimes difficulties with nuclear security, we know that there are flaws with the protection of facilities. I propose you to hear what this former subcontractor has to say...
-Sorry, I disagree, you're claiming from the beginning that in France, there are problems with nuclear security.
-Sometimes... See what this former subcontractor, who was in charge of detecting flaws inside facilities, says.
-That's enough, I'm leaving.
-Excuse me, why are you leaving ?"
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xjcvpm ... pital_news )

 

[Analis]

Obviously, everything is under control :

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/07_18.html

Nitrogen injection could be delayed at Fukushima

The operator of the troubled Fukushima Daiichi power plant is having trouble injecting nitrogen gas into one of the reactors to prevent a hydrogen explosion.

Tokyo Electric Power Company on Wednesday examined the No.3 reactor to see if it can connect injection pipes to the containment vessel.

A camera-mounted robot was used for the operation because high radioactive levels are preventing workers from remaining in the reactor building for long periods.

But TEPCO failed to confirm the situation because the robot couldn't reach the necessary part of the reactor.

Radiation levels as high as about 50 millisieverts per hour were registered in the area.

The reading means a worker would be exposed to radiation on par with the government-set 250-millisievert safety limit in 5 hours.

TEPCO is now considering sending personnel or a robot into the reactor building to conduct another survey. The new survey would happen on Friday at the earliest.

There is a growing likelihood that the planned nitrogen injection will be delayed.

Thursday, July 07, 2011 12:58 +0900 (JST)

http://www.infiniteunknown.net/2011/07/ ... -possible/

Expert Prof. Tomoya Yamauchi On Fukushima City (290,000 People): ‘Evacuation Must Be Conducted As Soon As Possible’Posted On Jul 05
See also:

- Alert: Greenpeace Radiation Measurements In Fukushima City: Hot Spots At 500-700 Times Normal!!! (Video)
- Fukushima City (Over 290,000 People) Is In Danger: Greenpeace Detects Cobalt-60 And High Radiation ‘Hot Spots’ – Children Should Be Evacuated Immediately

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

- Japan groups alarmed by radioactive soil (AFP, July 5, 2011):

TOKYO — Soil radiation in a city 60 kilometres (40 miles) from Japan’s stricken nuclear plant is above levels that prompted resettlement after the Chernobyl disaster, citizens’ groups said Tuesday.

The survey of four locations in Fukushima city, outside the nuclear evacuation zone, showed that all soil samples contained caesium exceeding Japan’s legal limit of 10,000 becquerels per kilogram (4,500 per pound), they said.

The highest level was 46,540 becquerels per kilogram, and the three other readings were between 16,290 and 19,220 becquerels per kilogram, they said.

The citizens’ groups — the Fukushima Network for Saving Children from Radiation and five other non-governmental organisations — have called for the evacuation of pregnant women and children from the town.

The highest reading in the city of 290,000 people far exceeded the level that triggered compulsory resettlement ordered by Soviet authorities following the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine, they said.

Kobe University radiation expert professor Tomoya Yamauchi conducted the survey on June 26 following a request from the groups.

“Soil contamination is spreading in the city,” Yamauchi said in a statement. “Children are playing with the soil, meaning they are playing with high levels of radioactive substances. Evacuation must be conducted as soon as possible.”

The coastal Fukushima Daiichi plant has been spewing radiation since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami knocked out its cooling systems

 

[Analis]

At last, Japanese Prime Minister Kan Naoto has admitted what had become apparent for weeks :

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=808766

Tuesday 12th July, 2011

Japan fears nuclear clean-up will take decades

Big News Network.com Saturday 9th July, 2011



The Japanese prime minister has predicted it will take well over ten years to decommission the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant.

Water crippled the cooling systems at the Fukushima Daiichi plant following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

In the first government announcement since the disaster, Prime Minister Naoto Kan told members of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan on Saturday that the entire clean-up would require a long time-frame.

He said with three reactors suffering meltdowns, it would take over ten years to control the situation.

He also warned it would take several decades until the accident is finally settled.

The removal of melted nuclear fuel is expected to begin around 2021, with reactors to be dismantled over a 30 year period.

Until Saturday, the government had not presented an estimate of how long it would take for the Fukushima crisis to end.

 

[Analis]

In France, I can provide evidence of a similar situation : a study of the ASN (Nuclear Security Authority) showed that EDF deliberately underestimated seismic risks, ignoring the studies of the IRSN (Institute for Radiological protection and Nuclear Security). The other revelation is that the IRSN knew that, chose to remain silent and took no action. In fact, the ASN took no more action (although it could change, after Fukushima).

Then please provide the evidence so we can summarise it for ourselves.

Don't worry, I will.

Better late than never... :

http://www.sortirdunucleaire.org/index. ... es2&page=2
(written in 2003)

-EDF falsified seismic data to save itself onerous improvement work, despite that they are essential for nuclear security.
-Power plants of Chinon, Blayais, Saint-Laurent, Dampierre, Belleville, Civaux, Bugey and Fessenheim are the most dangerous.
-Those of Saint-Alban, Golfech, Nogent, Chooz are also at risk.

Following the revelations made on 26 May 2003 by the association "Sortir du Nucléaire", the Nuclear Security Agency [ASN] breached its silence (at last) through a mail to EDF on 2 June 2003. Its admissions are striking. Notably, EDF falsified seismic data to save itself onerous improvement work... despite that they are essential for nuclear security.

EDF "fiddled with" seismic maps in order to not have to take into account a number of historical earthquakes.
The ASN wrote : "I will remember you that seismo-tectonic mapping and the seismic data used should be in accordance with the present best knowledge available. I also insist on the fact that delimitations of areas and the using of the data should not be conducted arbitrarily and without a certain amount of care in the absence of reliable data."


The association "Sortir du Nucléaire" requests for the seismic areas to be delimitated by independant seismologists and not by EDF, who was caught tampering red handed. Serious penalties should be inflicted to EDF.

Some " divergent interpretations (...) not without consequences on the design of the plants".

Seismic norms are defined for each plant from an Increased Security Seism (SMS), calculated by increasing the macro-seismic intensity of the Likely Maximum Historical Seism (SMHV). Yet the director of the ASN notes that some "ranges of ground movements linked with SMS calculated by EDF are inferior to the ranges of ground displacements associated with SMHV as estimated by the IRSN [Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté nucléaire - agency in charge of protection againat radiological risks and nuclear safety]." and that "those divergent interpretations pertain more notably to Chinon, Blayais, Saint-Laurent, Dampierre and Bugey facilities and are not without consquences on the design of the plants".

This is incredible : EDF's SMS are more reassuring than the IRSN's SMHV. We should ask how EDF could manage to "distort" scientific data to such an extant ! The association "Sortir du Nucléaire" resquests fort these five plants to be closed (see details below), and an investigation to determine how EDF could get to such results.

EDF chose its historical seisms not to be too strong for its calculations.

The Essential security rules (RFS) requests to retain the seism or the seisms that produced the intense macro-sismic activity in their region. Yet, the ASN acknowledges that "the quakes with the highest macro-seismic intensities are not necessarily those with the strongest pseudo-accelerations". Of course, EDF used this flaw for its own benefit while, with care, "the IRSN considered SMHV with different macro-seismic intensities". Alas, the ASN justifies EDF and only requests it to provide a file on this matter in six months. So EDF spares much money... while putting people into a great danger.

The association "Sortir du Nucléaire" requires a change of the essential safety rules and that EDF should be imposed to take into consideration quakes causing the most important damages.

Let's study now one-by-one the most worrying situations :

Chinon plant :

The ASN director writes to EDF : "During the preparation of the decision involving the IRSN and your services, the IRSN noticed that intensities at the epicenter of most seisms used as reference had been lowered [by EDF] as compared to those registered in the database SISFRANCE (...). Until this day, studies justifying these changes have not been transmitted to us by EDF (...). In the security report of the Chinon plant, issue 1997, the values of intensities at the epicenter are identical to those from SISFRANCE."

To put it simply, EDF lowered on its own the values of the intensity of seisms used as reference. This falsification is as gross as it is incredible. The association "Sortir du Nucléaire" asks that exemplary sanctions are inflicted to EDF.

Blayais plant

The ASN director writes : "The main source of divergence (between the IRSN and EDF] comes from the maping of the area concerned. The estimate of the seimic risk made by the IRSN provides one of the highest SMS for an EDF site, while the region of Bordeaux has a low seismicity. As a consequence, I consider that given our present knowledge of the seismicity in the region of Bordeaux, EDF's choice is acceptable.

This decision justifies EDF's choices for incredibly subjective motives, rejecting the works of the IRSN only because alledgely "the region of Bordeaux has a low seismicity".

The association "Sortir du nucléaire" asks for the Blayas plant to be closed for protectives motives and for studies to be conducted by independant geologists.

Fessenheim and Civaux plants

The IRSN studies show that EDF should make important improvement work, estimated at 200 millions of euros per reactor at Fessenheim, and 70 millions of euros per reactor at Civaux. Yet the ASN has just asked ADF to realize further studies on this matter.

The association "Sortir du Nucléaire" asks again to close permanently the Fessenheim plant (the oldest in France) and to close for protective reasons of the Civaux plant, as long as EDF hasn't completed the necessary improvement work.

Saint-Laurent plant

The director of the ASN writes :
"The main motive of disagreement between the estimates of the IRSN and EDF revolves around the choice of the seismo-tectonic maping. (...) Like in the case of the region of Bordeaux, the region around the plant of Saint-Laurent has a low seismicity and I consider that given our current knowledge of the seismic and seismo-tectonic around this area, the delimitation chosen by EDF is acceptable".

On ce again, this decision justifies EDF's choices for completely subjective motives, rejecting research conduted by the IRSN for the only motive that "the region around the plant of Saint-Laurent has a low seismicity".

The association "Sortir du Nucléaire" asks to close for protective motives the Saint-Laurent plant and the implementation of studies conducted by independant researchers.

......
to be continued

 

[Analis]

continued

......

Bugey plant

The director of the ASN writes :
"The hypothesis put forward by the ASN relating to the 1822 earthquake should be taken into consideration by the studie conducted by EDF to estimate the SMHV and SMS relating to the Bugey plant."
This decision sides with the IRSN and questions the arbitrary choices taken by EDF.

The association "Sortir du Nucléaire" reminds that it put its hands on internal documents from EDF which estimated to 800 millions euros the amount of the works required to meet the IRSN findings. So the association "Sortir du Nucléaire" demands that the pieces relating to the required improvement works to be made public, and that the Bugey plant should be closed for protective reasons as long as these works won't be implemented by EDF.

Dampierre plant

The director of the ASN acknowledges that EDF cheated twice :
-"A divergence in the maping allowed EDF to locate [the 1933 earthquake, called Tigy seism] at a more important distance from the site." ;
-"In addition, the specter associated with the SMS as determined by EDF and relating to the 1933 quake is inferior to the minimum standard specter".
But the director of the ASN is generous :
-Relating to the first fault, he "considers that the EDF mapping is acceptable taking into account the small consequences resulting from the divergences between the IRSN and EDF mappings."
-Relating to the second one, he asks "to take into consideration the minimum seismic risk as defined by the RFS 2001-01", but without requesting any commitment to correct the current absence of taking into account of this data.


The association "sortir du Nucléaire" demands the Dampierre plant to be closed for protective reasons until independant experts assess the consequences of EDF wrongdoings.

Belleville plant

Like the Dampierre plant, it is concerned by the 1933 Tigy seism. But, in order to spare money (to the detriment of security), EDF took the liberty to use as a reference a seism from 1079, yet the ASN writes : "this earthquake is old and there is a lack of data allowing to estimate with a good precision. During the preparation of the estimate made by your services and the IRSN, it was admitted that this seism was not a pertinent reference".

So EDF is caught "red-handed", but the director of the ASN was satisfied to just ask EDF to "take into account the Tigy quake, and (...) to recalculate the specter associated with the SMHV and SMS related to the Belleville site". No sanction is taken against EDF !

The association "Sortir du Nucléaire" asks for the Beleville nuclear plant to be closed for protective reasons as long as long as the Tigy seism won't be taken into account, and penalities to be inflicted to EDF for having deliberately chosen imprecise data... but allowing to spare money to the detriment of security.

Golfech, Saint-Alban, Nogent and Chooz plants

Relating to these plants (as well as to the Blayais and Belleville plants, already mentioned), the specter associated with the SMS determined by IRSN is smaller than the minimal specter that should obligatory be used.

The association "Sortir du Nucléaire" demands the Golfech, Saint-Alban, Nogent and Chooz plants to be closed for protective reasons, until independant experts assess the consequences of the non-taking into account by EDF of teh minimal specter.

Conclusion

We shoud also note that EDF, in a letter dated 5 March 2003 sent to the ASN, had "issued" that they didn't have to take into account the IRSN research. So we had to wait for the revelations made by the association "Sortir du Nucléaire" on late May for the ASN to officially react against the breaching of the rules by EDF on 2 June, still in a quite timid way : "This mail of yours I am refering to [from 5 March 2003], that put en end to this preparation, shouldn't be seen as conclusive".
We wonder who, of the ASN or of EDF, really holds "authority" over nuclear matters in France !


We'll end by reminding that fifteen nuclear reactors were stopped in Japon for months in 2002 and 2003 following an administrative order, because of falsifications of documents relating to security matters. The firm guilty of these falsifications was TEPCO, whose one plant has just been affected by the 15 July Japanese earthquake.
The nuclear lobby shouldn't be above the law. The safety of citizens shouldn't be subjected to the whims of rulers to whom security is obviously of little weight as compared to profitability. We have to act. The only solution is to close nuclear reactors quickly before a new Chernobyl happens.

 

[OneWingedBird]

According to the JAIF - Japan Atomic Industrial Forum Inc's Earthquake Report #253:

No. 253: 12:00, November 2
NHK news regarding status of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station
yesterday and today.
(Fukushima NPP Site)

Xenon suggests possible nuclear fission
Xenon detected in No.2 reactor

Some interesting stuff too in this video which mentions the above and website links for global radiation reporting.

 

[Analis]

"Japan fears nuclear clean-up will take decades

The Japanese prime minister has predicted it will take well over ten years to decommission the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant.
[......]
He said with three reactors suffering meltdowns, it would take over ten years to control the situation. " :

It seems to verify...

The firm guilty of these falsifications was TEPCO, whose one plant has just been affected by the 15 July Japanese earthquake.

: remember that it was written 8 years ago...
But then, why was this closure useless, as the March disaster obviously demonstrates ? I wouldn't be surprized that TEPCO complained that were the nuclear safety authority too hard on them, they would be forced to close their plants and so to endanger power supply to whole parts of Japan, or to increase prices so much that it would be very unpopular.

The French ASN dared to order to the Cadarache plutonium technologies worshop to close in 2009 because of a defective anti-seismic protection. And to order to the Laboratory of studies of advanced nuclear fuels to improve its protections. But when it comes to nuclear plants, it is much more hesitant to take necessary measures. Probably for the same reasons that led the Japanese nuclear authority to loosen its grip.
About the extant of the twisting of data relating to the Fesseheim plant, precisions could be found for example in an article from La Recherche #453 (June 2011). Relating to the 1356 Basel earthquake, EDF chose a magnitude of 6.2 Richter. But the IRSN estimates it at 6.4-6.7. A Swiss study made in 2009 by the Swiss seismological institute estimated it at 6.7-7.1. EDF's weak defense is that the magnitude was exagerated because the pseudo-accelerations could be explained by the nature of the ground. A faulty answer, first because in case of incertainty, given the nature of the danger involved, the rule is to choose the maximum estimate. Second, because what matters is how the ground is really affected, and then the plants built on this ground. This defense is clearly illogical, because it means in fact that the danger is greater than expected !
Similarly, David Baumont of the IRSN got interested by the Kaiserstuhl seism (28 June 1926), to the north of Freibour-oder-Brisgau. He estimated that despite that it was lower than the Basel quake, had its epicenter been located under the plant, it would have generated a greater high frequency movement than the 1326 seism.
Despite this, and that the plant is well known for being timeworn, the ASN renewed its authorization for 10 years in June.

A similar situation arose with the Flamanville plant in Normandy. It is located on a ground prone to liquefy. So that a quake with a given magnitude could induce movements much more important than those theorically associated with it. EDF recently implicitly admitted that they had under-estimated the risk, but the necessary improvement works have not been implemented.

The protection against floods is equally faulty. Yet the authorities had declared that it would change after the Blayais incident, when the plant was flooded by the December 1999 hurricanes, damaging and stopping the first cooling system. Hopefully the vapour generators could be used in emergency to cool the reactor, otherwise EDF would have been left with a 10 hours delay to act. Improvement works on its dikes had been planned and delayed to 2002 (their height should have been risen of 50 cm), but only in prevision of a river flood. In any case, they couldn't have prevented this incident. François Roussely, then EDF director, told at his hearing by the Parliament in 2000 : "Had we implemented these improvement works, they couldn't have changed anything. We were facing an extraordinary phenomenon we hadn't guessed". Not very reassuring.

As a result, in the following years, the ASN decided to check the anti-flooding safety protections of the nuclear plants. Many of them have been revealed as defective. In December 2009, the Cruas plant was deprived of its source of water for ten hours because a flood had blocked its filters with 50 m3 of algae. The Tricastin plant was revealed to face a surreal situation : it is located along a canal built in the fifties to feed a neigbouring hydro-electric plant. While its own gates are conceived to stand for a millennial flood plus a safety margin of 15 %, the canal was built to resist to a millennial flood with no additional margin. Hence a discrepancy which could have serious consequences.

The government and the nuclear firms have on various ocasions announced that improvements works would be implemented, or were even already implemented, in order to prevent all possibility of such incidents. But is it true ? Following the Fukushima disaster, the producers of the TV program Envoyé Spécial (France 2) decided to put these assertions to the test and dedicated an issue to nuclear safety in French nuclear plants, aired on 9 June 2011. They revealed that these works were not really serious and could not meet the requirements demanded by the ASN. To say it more abruptly, they were just to the gallery (these revelations probably played a role in Eric Besson's bad mood on the Capital set a few days later). Doesn't it look like the situation we probably had in Japan after 2003 ?

There is little doubt that a checking of nuclear plants in other countries would lead to similar revelations.

 

[ramonmercado]

Bird life badly hit by nuclear fallout in Japan
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/wor ... 75735.html
DAVID McNEILL in Tokyo

Fri, Feb 03, 2012

RESEARCHERS WORKING in the irradiated zone around the disabled Fukushima nuclear plant say bird populations there have begun to dwindle, in what may be a chilling harbinger of the impact of radioactive fallout on local life.

In the first major study on the impact of the world’s worst nuclear crisis in 25 years, the researchers from Japan, the US and Denmark say that analysis of 14 species of birds common to Fukushima and Chernobyl shows the effect on numbers is worse in the Japanese disaster zone.

Published next week in the journal Environmental Pollution, the paper says its findings demonstrate “an immediate negative consequence of radiation for birds during the main breeding season March-July”.

Two of the study’s authors have spent years working in the irradiated 2,850sq m zone around the Chernobyl plant, which exploded in 1986. A quarter of a century later, the zone is almost devoid of people.

Timothy Mousseau and Anders Pape Moller say their research there uncovered major negative effects among the local bird population, including reductions in longevity, male fertility and birds with smaller brains.

Many species show “dramatically” elevated DNA mutation rates, developmental abnormalities and extinctions, they add, while insect life has been significantly reduced.

Some scientists have challenged the findings, arguing that animal and insect species have thrived around Chernobyl’s almost uninhabited shadow.

Prof Mousseau, a biological scientist, at the University of South Carolina in the US, says however that there is “no data to support that thesis”.

Prof Mousseau says the fresh findings are of “profound” interest because Fukushima presents the first opportunity to monitor the impact of a large-scale nuclear disaster “from day one”.

In a 2003 judgment by a Danish academic body, Prof Pape Moller was found to have been guilty of “a falsification of the scientific message”.

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

Like canaries down a coal-mine.

 

[eburacum]

Hopefully Anders Pape Moller has learned how to conduct a proper scientific study by now; see
http://cricket.biol.sc.edu/dedication/m ... cision.pdf

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

Hopefully Anders Pape Moller has learned how to conduct a proper scientific study by now; see
http://cricket.biol.sc.edu/dedication/m ... cision.pdf

Full list of contributors and paper available, here:

http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/02/birds-near-fukushima-hit-harder-chernobyl

...

The paper:

Anders Pape Møller, Atsushi Hagiwara, Shin Matsui, Satoe Kasahara, Kencho Kawatsu, Isao Nishiumi, Hiroyuki Suzuki, Keisuke Ueda, Timothy A. Mousseau. Abundance of birds in Fukushima as judged from Chernobyl. Env Poll. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2012.01.008.

...