via Enformable.com / May 5, 2014 /Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and French President Francois Hollande met during a summit meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris on Monday and agreed that the two countries will work to promote the research and development of fast breeder reactors. According to Japanese sources with knowledge of the agreement, Japan will provide technical assistance on France’s fast breeder reactor development projects. France has … Continue reading →
Continue readingCategory Archives: Fukushima
via NewsOnJapan.com / May 2, 2014 / Fukushima prefectural police said Thursday that two senior officers have committed suicide this week. In the first case, which occurred on April 28, Yoshikuni Tasaki, 51, an inspector, hanged himself inside an office at a police building. Fuji TV quoted police as saying that Tasaki left a note in which he said he was exhausted from work. In the second case, which occurred … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Goddard’s Journal / April 24, 2014 / Critique of two studies claiming 14,000 deaths and disease in North American caused by the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan. Letter by Yuri Hiranuma to the journal that published the congenital-hypothyroidism study : http://fukushimavoice-eng2.blogspot.jp/2014/04/a-letter-to-editor-regarding.html The journal rejected the letter w/o explanation. The journal publisher is on Beall’s “List of Predatory Publishers 2014″ : http://scholarlyoa.com/2014/01/02/list-of-predatory-publishers-2014/ The two studies critiqued Mangano J, Sherman J, Busby … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia business-standard.com / April 30, 2014 / The operator of Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant said today it booked a USD 4.3 billion annual net profit owing to an electricity rate hike and a massive government bailout following the 2011 disaster. Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) was teetering on the brink as cleanup and compensation costs stoked huge losses and threatened to collapse the sprawling utility until Tokyo stepped with a … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia undercurrentnews.com / April 29, 2014 / Scientists claim to have found slightly elevated levels of radioactivity in US West Coast albacore tuna caused by the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011, according to Oregon State University (OSU). Researchers from OSU said in new study published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology the increase of radiation has been minute. In fact, it would be needed to consume more than 700,000 … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Asahi Shimbun / April 29, 2014 / Nearly half of households that evacuated following the Fukushima nuclear disaster have been split up while close to 70 percent have family members suffering from physical and mental distress, a survey showed. The number of households forced to live apart exceeds the number that remain together, according the survey, the first by the Fukushima prefectural government that attempted to survey all households … Continue reading →
Continue readingfrom The Corbett Report: The Japanese Nuclear Regulatory Agency is currently considering applications from 8 different utilities companies to restart 17 of the nation’s 54 nuclear reactors, which have been taken offline in the wake of the Fukushima crisis. Today we talk to Aileen Mioko Smith of Green Action Japan about the anti-nuclear movement in Japan and their efforts to stop the reactor restarts from happening.
Continue readingvia Japan Times / April 27, 2014 / Residents of the 20-km hot zone around the meltdown-hit Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant have been allowed to stay overnight at their homes after progress with decontamination. Previously, the residents from the village of Kawauchi Village, Fukushima Prefecture (pictured), were allowed to spend only the day inside the evacuation zone. The change means the residents will be free to spend entire days … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia RT.com / April 21, 2014 / Katsutaka Idogawa, former mayor of Futaba, a town near the disabled Fukushima nuclear plant, is warning his country that radiation contamination is affecting Japan’s greatest treasure – its children. Asked about government plans to relocate the people of Futaba to the city of Iwaki, inside the Fukushima prefecture, Idogawa criticized the move as a “violation of human rights.” Compared with Chernobyl, radiation levels … Continue reading →
Continue readingby Yuka Obayashi / via Japan Times / April 20, 2014 / The manager of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant admits to embarrassment that repeated efforts have failed to bring under control the problem of radioactive water, eight months after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told the world the matter had been resolved. Tokyo Electric Power Co., the plant’s operator, has been fighting a daily battle against contaminated water … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Ria Novosti / April 18, 2014 / Radiation levels in the areas surrounding the quake-hit Fukushima nuclear power plant have dropped, but still exceed the long-term target of the Japanese government, according to a report issued by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry on Friday. The report, quoted by the Asahi Shumbun daily newspaper, says that Fukushima evacuees will receive radiation doses from 0.7 to 3 millisieverts per … Continue reading →
Continue readingBy Shinichi Sekine and Miki Aoki / Asahi Shimbun / April 16, 2014 / The Japanese government withheld findings on estimated radiation exposure for Fukushima returnees for six months, even though levels exceeded the long-term target of 1 millisievert a year at more than half of surveyed locations. Individual radiation doses were estimated to be beyond 1 millisievert per year, or 0.23 microsievert an hour, at 24 of all the … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Press TV / April 15, 2014 / Authorities at Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant say the facility’s basements have been mistakenly filled with highly contaminated water. The basements were flooded with about 200 tons of cooling-tank radioactive water after pumps were turned on by mistake. The plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), says the water didn’t have a pathway to reach the ocean or leak out to … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Japan Times / April 12, 2014 / Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Friday that toxic water found to have leaked last August at one of the huge tanks at the accident-hit Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant was far more contaminated than initially announced. After recalculating the radiation level, Tepco said the water contained 280 million becquerels per liter of beta ray-emitting radioactive materials such as strontium-90, instead of … Continue reading →
Continue readingBy Kevin Griffin / Vancouver Sun / April 12, 2014 / All along the Pacific coast of North America and as far south as Costa Rica, people with little or no scientific background have volunteered to raise money for the program and collect the sea water samples needed to test for radiation. The crowdsourcing, citizen-scientist program is the idea of Ken Buesseler, a research scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, … Continue reading →
Continue readingBy Maan Pamintuan-Lamorena / via Japan Daily Press / April 11, 2014 / Teaching the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident to elementary school students proved to be difficult as what some textbook publishers found out. Especially if the words “atom” and “radiation” are not yet included in the curriculum guidelines for elementary students. As such, only one out of the six approved science textbooks for primary school use tackled the … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Enformable.com / April 8, 2014 / Engineers from Tokyo Electric held discussions with officials from the Japanese government on Monday where they communicated that they are running out of room to store contaminated debris at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. According to estimates provided by the engineers, more than 560,000 cubic meters of debris will be produced from decommissioning activities over the next 13 years. Tokyo Electric … Continue reading →
Continue readingfrom NHK World / April 8, 2014 / The government and Tokyo Electric Power Company will begin pumping up groundwater at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on Wednesday. The water is expected to be released into the sea next month. This will mark the start of one of several key measures to reduce the increasing volume of radiation-contaminated water at the facility. According to the plan, clean groundwater that … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Enformable.com / April 7, 2014 / A paper published by the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum focuses on why Fukushima Daiichi experienced a severe accident and other nuclear power facilities like Fukushima Daiini, Onagawa, and Tokai nuclear power plants were not as severely affected by the earthquake and tsunami. One of the findings was that the earthquake damaged all seven of the offsite power systems providing external power to the … Continue reading →
Continue readingBy Andrew DeWit / Asia-Pacific Journal / April 7, 2014 / 60% of Japan’s 48 viable nuclear reactors, are not as yet being considered for application to the Nuclear Regulation Agency (NRA) for restart. All of Japan’s 48 viable nuclear reactors are at present offline, and have been since September of 2013. The Abe cabinet is keen to restart as many of these as possible. But regulatory rules, public opinion … Continue reading →
Continue readingKyle Cleveland Temple University Japan Abstract The nuclear disaster in Fukushima which followed in the wake of the 3/11 Tohoku earthquake and Tsunami has been one of the most significant public health crises in modern history, with profound implications for how nuclear energy is perceived. This paper analyzes the nature of risk assessment in the nuclear crisis, examining how the Japanese government and its constituent institutions in the nuclear industry, foreign governments … Continue reading →
Continue readingby Jeff Kingston / Japan Times / April 5, 2014 / Kyle Cleveland, my colleague at Temple University Japan, recently published a report in the online Asia-Pacific Journal, “Mobilizing Nuclear Bias: The Fukushima Nuclear Crisis and the Politics of Uncertainty” that has drawn widespread media attention. Based on numerous interviews with government officials, military officers and nuclear energy experts, along with documents obtained through Freedom of Information requests to U.S. … Continue reading →
Continue readingBy Patrick J. Kiger / National Geographic / April 2, 2014 / For the first time since Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power disaster three years ago, residents of a small portion of the surrounding restricted area are being allowed to return home, even though radiation levels remain elevated At midnight on March 31, the Japanese government officially lifted an evacuation order for a portion of the Miyakoji district of Tamura, … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Enformable.com / March 27, 2014 / Tokyo Electric announced today that the “Warrior” robot, designed and engineered in the United States, tipped over during an inspection of the Unit 2 reactor building two weeks ago and could not be retrieved due a dead battery. On March 13th, the “Warrior” robot was one of several robots collecting samples of the concrete floor on the fifth floor of the reactor building … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Zero Hedge / March 31, 2014 / As reported last night, Japan’s economy may once again be relapsing into a slowing phase, perversely well in advance of the dreaded sales-tax hike which many expect will catalyze Japan’s collapse into another recession as happened the last time Japan had a tax hike, but that doesn’t mean its population should be prevented from enjoying the heavily energized local atmosphere buzzing with … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia NHK World / March 30, 2014 / The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant says it has resumed the process of removing spent fuel from one of the crippled reactors. On Wednesday, an alarm suddenly activated and stopped a large crane, as workers were preparing to hoist a cask containing fuel assemblies from the pool at the No. 4 reactor building. Tokyo Electric Power Company found that a … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Mainichi.jp / March 25, 2014 / A Cabinet Office team has delayed the release of radiation measurements from three Fukushima Prefecture municipalities, and plans to release them later with lower, recalculated results, the Mainichi learned on March 24. The three municipalities are currently covered by evacuation orders imposed after the March 2011 Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant meltdowns — evacuation orders the government plans to lift in the near … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Reuters / March 28, 2014 / A worker at Japan’s wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant died on Friday after being buried under gravel while digging a ditch, prompting the operator to suspend cleanup work for safety checks. Tokyo Electric Power Co said it was the first time a laborer had died as a direct result of an accident inside the plant since the nuclear disaster in March 2011, the world’s … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia RT.com / March 27, 2014 / Tokyo Electric Power Co. underestimated internal radiation exposure of 142 workers involved in immediate emergency operations at the damaged Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in March 2011, according to Japan’s Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry. After reexamining exposure records provided by TEPCO, the Ministry said Tuesday it had increased the 142 workers’ radiation data by an average of 5.86 millisieverts, The Asahi … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia NHK World / March 26, 2014 / Work has been suspended to remove spent nuclear fuel from a storage pool at a reactor building in the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Tokyo Electric Power Company said an accident occurred at around 9:30 AM on Wednesday when workers started removing fuel units at the No. 4 reactor building. The utility explained a large crane used to hoist a cask containing … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia TEPCO / March 25, 2014 / We have been preparing for establishing a new company on April 1, 2014, which will be a new internal entity of the function dealing with decommissioning and contaminated water within TEPCO, for the purpose of clarifying the responsibilities allocation and focusing solely on handling of decommissioning and contaminated water at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. Now the company outline is decided, and … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia couriermail.com.au / March 25, 2014 / First off, no one who works at Japan’s wrecked nuclear power plant calls it Fukushima Dai-ichi, comic-book artist Kazuto Tatsuta says in his book about his time on the job. It’s ichi efu, or 1F. It’s not “hell on earth,’’ but a life filled with a careful routine to protect against radiation. A good part of the day is spent putting on and … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Press TV / March 25, 2014 / Officials at Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant say they have switched off a key decontamination system used to clean radiation-tainted water after workers discovered leaks. This comes as the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) spotted the defect just hours after the system came back online. The firm has repeatedly switched off the system over a series of glitches since trial … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia The Asahi Shimbun / March 25, 2014 / Fishermen here have given the go-ahead for Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s bypass plan to release uncontaminated groundwater into the sea by diverting it before it reaches the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. The Fukushima Prefectural Federation of Fisheries Cooperative Associations confirmed its approval when the heads of its member associations met in the city of Iwaki on March 25. … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Times of Oman / The operator of Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant said Monday it has switched on a key decontamination system that cleans radiation-tainted water used to cool the site’s damaged reactors. Last week, Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) said it had discovered a defect in its Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) and switched it off for repairs. The embattled firm said two of three lines that clean the … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia NHK World / March 24, 2014 / The government and Tokyo Electric Power Company — the operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, are considering releasing groundwater into the sea, bypassing the facility, as a main measure to reduce the volume of contaminated wastewater. About 400 tons of groundwater flow into the reactor buildings every day. The groundwater becomes contaminated when it mixes with water used to cool … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia sewardcitynews.com / March 23, 2014 / Thank you everyone in Seward who has taken an interest and generously helped out with the Fukushima Project. The project has received a lot of attention and interest about the well being of Resurrection Bay. So far, over half of the funding necessary has been raised for the proposed water sampling analysis. In addition, several new Alaska communities have decided to also register … Continue reading →
Continue readingBy Neenah Payne / via activistpost.com / The Fukushima Solutions World Conference will take place on March 22-23 at the University of Texas at Austin. The goal is to come up with a solution to counter the unprecedented Fukushima disaster. The first day will feature experts in nuclear issues discussing remediation solutions for the Fukushima disaster. The focus on the second day will be health issues and providing solutions for … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia RT.com / March 20, 2014 / Treatment of radioactive water at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant might be indefinitely suspended after malfunctions crippled the water purification process and recontaminated thousands of tons of partially purified water, Japanese media reported. The failure in the system, known as the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS), is the latest setback in Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s (TEPCO) uphill battle to stockpile radioactive water, which … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Japan Times / March 20, 2014 / Hitachi Ltd. and Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy Ltd. say they have developed robots to detect cooling water leakage points and the condition of nuclear fuel at the disaster-struck Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant. One robot can move through narrow pipes by changing shape and another can move through radioactive water to perform research related to the task of removing melted nuclear fuel. The … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Japan Times / March 18, 2014 / Tokyo Electric Power Co. halted the operations of all three advanced radioactive water cleanup systems, collectively called Advanced Liquid Processing System, or ALPS, at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant on Tuesday. Tepco made the decision after it found that one of the systems, called B, was not functioning properly. Water samples from System B on Monday showed that levels of beta … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Enformable / March 18, 2014 / According to labor officials in Fukushima Prefecture, nearly 70% of the companies hired to conduct decontamination work after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster have been found to be in violation of multiple labor laws. In July 2013, the Fukushima Labor Bureau found that between January and June 2013, 68% of companies and firms engaged in decontamination work were violation labor laws. The labor … Continue reading →
Continue readingBy David McNeil / NY Times / In the chaotic, fearful weeks after the Fukushima nuclear crisis began, in March 2011, researchers struggled to measure the radioactive fallout unleashed on the public. Michio Aoyama’s initial findings were more startling than most. As a senior scientist at the Japanese government’s Meteorological Research Institute, he said levels of radioactive cesium 137 in the surface water of the Pacific Ocean could be 10,000 … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Japan Times / March 16, 2014 / Starting in April, Fukushima Prefecture will introduce easy to use radiation detectors for food produce at municipalities so that residents will no longer have to cut up items into small pieces to check cesium levels. Currently, residents can test for cesium in home-grown vegetables and edible wild plants at community centers. But those detectors require cutting up 500 grams of food into … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia The Japan Times / March 15, 2014 / More than 5,000 anti-nuclear campaigners rallied in Tokyo on Saturday as the government and utilities move toward restarting reactors in Kyushu. The protesters gathered at Hibiya Park in central Tokyo to urge the government not to approve the reactivation of any nuclear plant. Regulators are currently reviewing whether to allow Kyushu Electric Power Co. to fire up two reactors at its … Continue reading →
Continue readingBy Jeff Barnard / via adn.com / March 14, 2014 / Scientists have crowd-sourced a network of volunteers taking water samples at beaches along the West Coast in hopes of capturing a detailed look at low levels of radiation drifting across the ocean since the 2011 tsunami that devastated a nuclear power plant in Japan. With the risk to public health extremely low, the effort is more about perfecting computer … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Japan Times / March 14, 2014 / Workers from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant rallied Friday outside the headquarters of Tokyo Electric Power Co., complaining they are being forced to work for meager pay in dangerous conditions. The group of about 100 demonstrators shouted and pumped their fists in the air as they railed against being cheated by contractors hired to find recruits to clean up the shattered … Continue reading →
Continue readingJames Corbett of Fukushimaupdate.com and Ryan Dawson of ancreport.com have a wide ranging conversation about Fukushima, Global Warming, Thorium, TEPCO, Media, Alarmists, and the TPP. This video is only a preview. The FULL interview can be found HERE.
Continue readingvia Press TV / March 11, 2014 / The radioactive water at Japan’s crippled nuclear power plant remains the biggest problem, hampering the cleanup process three years after the disaster, officials say. On Monday, officials at Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant said the contaminated water accumulated at the facility was hampering the cleanup process. “The most pressing issue for us is the contaminated water, rather than decommissioning,” media outlets … Continue reading →
Continue readingBy Graham Land / Asian Correspondent / March 11, 2014 / Three years on and the extent of the environmental, human and economic repercussions of the Fukushima incident continue to reveal themselves. Fukushima “fallout” is both literal in terms of radioactive materials, and figurative on a global scale. The politics and opinions around the nuclear issue are far from settled. In Japan anti-nuclear sentiment runs high, with protesters recently marking … Continue reading →
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