via PressForTruth.ca / February 10, 2014 / The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in northeastern Japan remains to this day as the single most deadly threat to face the world with the potential for radiation poisoning. Dan Dicks of Press For Truth delves deep into the issues regarding the Fukushima disaster to better understand the implications of this catastrophe while at the same time separating the facts from fiction. Joining … Continue reading →
Continue readingCategory Archives: nuclear
by Miya Tanaka / via Japan Times / February 10, 2014 / The defeat of two anti-nuclear candidates, including former Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa, in Sunday’s Tokyo gubernatorial election has given the central government a boost of confidence as it prepares to move forward with an energy policy supporting the use of atomic power. “We plan to compile a feasible and balanced Basic Energy Plan (for medium- to long-term energy … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Asahi Shimbun / February 10, 2014 / Hundreds of technicians and engineers are camped out in Tokyo hotels trying to revive Japan’s nuclear industry, shut down in the wake of the Fukushima disaster almost three years ago. It’s proving a hard slog. A new, more independent regulator is in place, asking difficult questions and seeking to impose tougher safety rules on powerful utilities that were largely their own masters … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Al Jazeera / February 9, 2014 / Yoichi Masuzoe (pictured), a former health minister backed by Japan’s ruling party, has been elected as the new governor of Tokyo, after defeating two candidates who had promised to end nuclear power nearly three years after the Fukushima disaster. Masuzoe’s victory on Sunday was declared in exit polls on public broadcaster NHK within minutes after voting closed. “I want to make Tokyo the … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia RT.com / February 8, 2014 / TEPCO has revised the readings on the radioactivity levels at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant well to 5 million becquerels of strontium per liter – both a record, and nearly five times higher than the original reading of 900,000 becquerels per liter. Strontium-90 is a radioactive isotope of strontium produced by nuclear fission with a half-life of 28.8 years. The legal standard … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Japan Times / February 7, 2014 / Eight more Fukushima children have been confirmed as having thyroid gland cancer following the prefecture’s checkups, a local panel of experts said Friday, ruling out any link to the Tepco triple-meltdown calamity. The prefecture began the checkups in 2011 due to the nuclear disaster at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 power station. Those subject to the measure were 18 or … Continue reading →
Continue readingIn a pair of articles, E&E’s Hannah Northey reports that nuclear utility giants such as Exelon and Entergy are lobbying hard for changes to electricity marketplace rules that would enable them to keep uncompetitive atomic reactors operating. For it…
Continue readingAs reported by Crain’s Chicago Business, Exelon — the largest nuclear utility in the U.S. — is considering shuttering its Quad Cities nuclear power plant, because it cannot compete on the wholesale electricity market. Quad Cities consists of two …
Continue readingvia EX-SKF / February 5, 2014 / The word “uncontaminated” in the title above is in quotation marks, because there may be radionuclides left in the groundwater to be released, particularly tritium, even though it is the water drawn from the wells placed on the west side of the reactor buildings – i.e. before the groundwater enters the reactor buildings and gets contaminated. From Jiji Tsushin (2/3/2014), after the regular … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Japan Daily Press / February 6, 2014 / As one possible solution to the ongoing problem of disposing contaminated waste as a result of the nuclear meltdown in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, Fukushima Governor Yuhei Sato is proposing that some of the radioactive soil be stored in two towns where the radiation levels are still too high. He informed Okuma Mayor Toshitsuna Watanabe and Futaba Mayor Shiro Izawa … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Mainichi News / February 4, 2014 / Construction plans for dozens of mid-sized geothermal power plants have surfaced across Japan, with its rich geothermal resources coming under the spotlight in the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake. Chuo Electric Power Co. will herald the move in April by initiating the operation of a new geothermal plant in Kumamoto Prefecture — the country’s first such facility to be inaugurated … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia EX-SKF / February 3, 2014 / I have to say these must be the same people who participated in the fluffy “beyond nuclear” demonstrations (more like entertainment festivals) in Tokyo starting in the early summer of 2011, as the Fukushima I NPP nuclear accident was very, very far from being “stabilized” and reports of high levels of radiation contamination in sewer sludge and ashes from garbage incineration were beginning … Continue reading →
Continue readingIf you live in the Washington, DC or New York metro area, please consider attending the International Uranium FIlm Festival. It comes to DC February 10, 11 and 12 and to Brooklyn, NY February 14-19. The DC festival, at the Goethe-Institut, opens with T…
Continue readingby Jin Satoko / CNIC Yugo Ono is a cousin of Yoko Ono. This is not widely known, and before I learned about this, I had not known much about him. After the March 11, 2011 earthquake, I organized a gathering with friends to discuss the potential danger of the Tomari Nuclear Power Station in Hokkaido. We invited Dr. Ono as a speaker for the gathering. I remember that I … Continue reading →
Continue readingHarvey Wasserman edits www.nukefree.org, and wrote Solartopia! Our Green-Powered Earth. Harvey has published the first of a two part series at EcoWatch, entitled “50 Reasons We Should Fear the Worst from Fukushima.”
Part Two will be on how Fukushi…
by Lucas W. Hixson / via Enformabale.com / February 3, 2014 / It is well known that sometimes, we humans experience unintended consequences for conscious decisions we have made. Some of these unintended consequences are so frequently encountered that they are named. The Streisand Effect describes a situation where an attempt to suppress, censor, or remove information brings more attention to it. It is named after Barbra Streisand, who unsuccessfully … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia bloomberg.com / February 3, 2014 / JFE Holdings Inc. (5411)’s engineering unit began construction of a 26.2-megawatt solar power station in the prefecture of Fukushima, north of Tokyo, on behalf of a health foods company. The plant at a former golf club is expected to be completed in March 2015, JFE Engineering Corp. said in a statement today. The station will be run by Nagano prefecture-based Sunny Health Co., … Continue reading →
Continue readingby Masaaki Kameda / via The Japan Times / February 2, 2014 / Whether the powers that be liked it or not, nuclear power took center stage in a debate involving four major candidates for the Tokyo gubernatorial election that was streamed live on the Internet Saturday. Three of the candidates came out firmly against atomic power. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s administration has done its best to keep the issue … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Japan Times / February 1, 2014 / Tokyo Electric Power Co. decommissioned the No. 5 and No. 6 reactors at its meltdown-stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant in Fukushima Prefecture on Friday. The two units were the only ones that survived the Great East Japan Earthquake and subsequent tsunami that hit the aging six-reactor plant in March 2011. Tepco, as the utility is known, will now focus on containing … Continue reading →
Continue readingby Jacob Devaney / via Huffington Post / January 31, 2014 / Panic is rarely ever a good idea because it closes down the brain with fear, can cripple creative responses, and generally causes people to not think straight. Denial is worse. Like it or not, nuclear power is everywhere. Some consider it worse than Satan, others think it’s the only logical solution to address our dependence on fossil fuels … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia RT.com / January 31, 2014 / A veteran radio show host has quit his job at Japan Broadcasting Corp. after the program director told him not to discuss nuclear power for fear his comments “would affect voting behavior” in the upcoming Tokyo gubernatorial election. Toru Nakakita, a professor of economics at Tokyo University, was the host of the Business Outlook segment on the Radio Asa Ichiban for the past … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia RT.com / January 30, 2014 / The suppression pool of the Fukushima Daiichi Unit No. 2 reactor may have a 3-centimeter hole in it, through which the highly radioactive water might be leaking out, the plant operator said. The information is based on the data gathered by a robot sent into the suppression pool at the bottom of the No. 2 reactor’s primary containment vessel earlier in January. The … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia RT.com / January 30, 2014 / About 1,400 people have filed a joint lawsuit against three companies that manufactured Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, saying they should be financially liable for damage caused by its 2011 meltdowns. Lawyers for the plaintiffs, who are seeking compensation of 100 yen ($1) each, say the lawsuit is meant to set a new legal precedent on current regulations, which give big corporations immunity … Continue reading →
Continue readingby Matthew M. Burke / Stars and Stripes / January 27, 2014 / Congress has instructed the Defense Department to launch an inquiry into potential health impacts on Navy first-responders from Japan’s March 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster. The request, made in the explanatory statement from the House that accompanied the fiscal 2014 budget bill that passed Congress this month, comes as a growing number of sailors and Marines … Continue reading →
Continue readingby David Suzuki / via Straight.com / January 28, 2014 / An Internet search turns up an astounding number of pages about radiation from Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant meltdown that followed an earthquake and tsunami in March 2011. But it’s difficult to find credible information. One reason is that government monitoring of radiation and its effects on fish stocks appears to be limited. According to the Woods Hole … Continue reading →
Continue readingby Lucas W. Hixson / Enformable.com / Tokyo Electric workers are to begin work at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to create underground frozen walls at the Unit 2 and Unit 3 turbine buildings on Wednesday. The utility is also digging wells across the compound to determine whether or not water is leaking directly from the reactor buildings. Enormous amounts of coolant water is injected around the clock to … Continue reading →
Continue readingAmerican folk icon Pete Seeger passed away on January 27, 2014 at 94 years old.
Pete was more than America’s beloved folklorist and singer, he was a nonviolent troubadour waging world peace and justice, a balladeer to save the environment for fut…
via Our Radioactive Ocean / January 28, 2014 /The first results from seawater samples come from La Jolla and Point Reyes, Calif., and Grayland and Squium, Wash. Four samples from these three locations show no detectable Fukushima cesium. We know this because Fukushima released equal amounts of two isotopes of cesium: the shorter-lived cesium-134 isotope (half-life of 2 years) and the longer-lived cesium-137 (half-life of 30 years). Cesium-137 was found … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia YouTube / Its wall to wall crazies in a panic out there! Original video suggesting that Fukushima is responsible for the high levels of radioactive ‘contamination’ on the beaches in the Bay Area of California. Personally I dont believe a word of it. Firstly because there’s quite a lot of naturally occurring uranium, thorium and radium in california, secondly because beaches are one of the places where geological reworking … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Daily Kos / January 27, 2014 / There have been a number of diaries over the last few months about the contamination of the Pacific Ocean by huge and ever increasing releases from the Fukushima Daiichi disaster site. I have written about the ramped-up PR effort to minimize the possible impact of those releases as the waterborne plumes begin to reach the western coasts of North America. As part … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia World Nuclear News / January 27, 2014 / Costly fossil fuel imports have helped push Japan into a trade deficit for a third consecutive year as the country’s nuclear plants remain off line. Preliminary 2013 figures released by Japan’s Ministry of Finance reveal a deficit of JPY 11.5 trillion ($112 billion), up 65% on 2012′s deficit of 6.9 trillion ($67.5 billion). A major contributing factor has been the cost … Continue reading →
Continue readingby Maan Pamintuan / via Japan Daily Press / January 27, 2014 / A drone manufactured to measure radiation levels has been developed by the Japanese Atomic Energy Agency and the Japanese Space Exploration Agency. It is operated using a remote control and unlike manned aircrafts, it has the option to fly lower, with a minimum of 300 meters in altitude. As the earthquake and tsunami hit area of Fukushima … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia ENEnews.com / January 25, 2014 / Alaska Marine Science Symposium (pdf), Jan. 20-24, 2014 (emphasis added): 2011 Fukushima Fall Out: Aerial Deposition On To Sea Ice Scenario And Wildlife Health Implications To Ice-Associated Seals (Dr. Doug Dasher, John Kelley, Gay Sheffield, Raphaela Stimmelmayr) — On March 11, 2011 off Japan’s west coast, an earthquake-generated tsunami struck the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant resulting in a major nuclear accident that … Continue reading →
Continue readingby Ralph Nader / Counterpunch / January 24, 2014 / Last month, the ruling Japanese coalition parties quickly rammed through Parliament a state secrets law. We Americans better take notice. Under its provisions the government alone decides what are state secrets and any civil servants who divulge any “secrets” can be jailed for up to 10 years. Journalists caught in the web of this vaguely defined law can be jailed … Continue reading →
Continue readingby Jennifer Canfield / Juneau Empire / January 23, 2014 / The Department of Environmental Conservation isn’t actively testing fish for radiation, Commissioner Larry Hartig told the Senate Natural Resources Committee on Wednesday. A radiation leak from a nuclear power plant in Japan after a March 2011 earthquake and subsequent tsunami continues to worry some about whether it’s safe to eat fish from the Pacific Ocean, but Hartig said those … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia RT.com / January 23, 2014 / Health officials in the coastal Canadian province of British Columbia are cautioning residents not to try and qualm fears of radioactive contamination by ingesting mass quantities of potassium iodide. Journalist Dan Fumano of BC’s The Province newspaper wrote this week that potassium iodide pills have been flying off the shelves of area drug stores after reports published on the internet advised people that … Continue reading →
Continue readingDr. Jeffrey PattersonIt is with heavy heart, deep sadness and sense of loss, that Beyond Nuclear pays tribute to Dr. Jeffrey Patterson at the time of his unexpected death due to a heart attack on the night of January 23. Dr. Patterson had long served -…
Continue readingvia Channel News Asia / January 23, 2014 / Japanese researchers said on Thursday they had succeeded in using cosmic rays to find nuclear fuel inside a reactor, a technology that might be helpful in the complicated decommissioning at Fukushima. By observing the way the particles behaved near reactors, container vessels and spent fuel pools, they were able to obtain a clear visual picture of the fuel, they said. “We … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Deep Sea News / January 23, 2014 / Why do some people hold fast to apocalyptic ideas, like Fukushima radiation, even when the best available evidence suggests that the world is not about to end? Confirmation bias is the term psychologists use to describe the behavior of testing an idea by searching for evidence that supports it. This tendency to confirm pre-existing beliefs creates and maintains false perceptions of … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Alaska Dispatch / January 22, 2014 / Since the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, I’ve been trying to find Zen with the the ongoing Fukushima nuclear mess. Between colossal tax cuts for oil companies, a budget forecast that induces acid reflux, and Medicaid un-expansion, I barely had the brainspace to worry whether my dad’s smoked sockeye was going to give me colon cancer or turn me into a … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia pddnet.com / January 22, 2014 / The Nuclear Regulation Authority on Wednesday confirmed that one of the aging reactors at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima Daini plant can remain offline safely for another 10 years, after assessing the deterioration level of related equipment and the impact of the March 2011 natural disasters. The Fukushima Daini plant (pictured) is located about 12 kilometers south of the Fukushima Daiichi plant, which … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Japan Times / January 21, 2014 / The government plans to step up its efforts to select the final disposal site for high-level radioactive waste from nuclear power generation, after having failed to find any willing host community for more than a decade. But the long-stalled process will have little prospect of moving forward unless doubts and questions surrounding nuclear power — including those highlighted by the 2011 Fukushima … Continue reading →
Continue readingfrom allthingsnuclear.org / January 21, 2014 / Lots of people have lots of reasons for preventing damage to nuclear fuel inside the core of nuclear power reactors. But what is done to help meet this goal? The nuclear fuel for boiling water reactors (BWRs) consists of uranium pellets loaded inside hollow metal tubes called fuel rods. Metal caps are welded on the ends of fully loaded fuel rods to seal … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia EX-SKF / January 19, 2014 / This is today’s update on the water leak from the MSIV (Main Steam Isolation Valve) Room of Reactor 3 at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant. (Previous posts on the subject are here and here.) TEPCO says they did the nuclide analysis of the water sample that the robot collected. The temperature and the levels of contamination indicate it is the water that comes … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia National Post / January 20, 2014 / Three months after making the wildly overblown claim that a second nuclear emergency at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant would require the evacuation of the North American West Coast, environmentalist David Suzuki said he “regrets” the comments. Nevertheless, the Nature of Things host did not seem to go so far as to renege the claim, which has baffled nuclear scientists. “I regret having … Continue reading →
Continue readingDr. Jeff Patterson, President, PSRDr. Jeffrey Patterson (photo, left), President of Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), will present on “Nuclear Power: What You Need to Know about Price, Pollution and Proliferation” at several stops across sout…
Continue readingvia EX-SKF / January 18, 2014 / TEPCO released the video which was being taken by the robot on the first floor of Reactor 3 and which was being monitored by a TEPCO employee who noticed the water. The flow looks significant and fast. From TEPCO’s photos and video library, 1/18/2014: Location of the MSIV Room: Radiation levels on the 1st floor of Reactor 3, from yesterday’s post: The … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia tos.org / EARLY ONLINE RELEASE | Posted January 5, 2014 2014, Oceanography 27(1), http://dx.doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2014.02 Fukushima and Ocean Radioactivity Author | Abstract | Full Article | Citation | References Author Ken O. Buesseler | Marine Chemistry & Geochemistry Department, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA, USA Top Abstract The triple disaster of the March 11, 2011, earthquake, tsunami, and subsequent radiation releases from Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant were … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia JeffreyJaxen.com / January 11, 2014 / < All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them” -Galileo Galilei In this documentary titled “The Battle of Chernobyl” there exists as striking truth that jumps out at 1h16m55s. What follows below is the transcript of that material: Narrator: A deputy of The Supreme Soviet discovered the systematic cover up of the true consequences of … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia bloomberg.com / January 19, 2014 / Tokyo Electric Power Co., operator of the wrecked Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant, is considering spending about 2.67 trillion yen ($25.6 billion) on strategic investments through partnerships as it seeks to move beyond the Fukushima disaster. Of the planned investments, the utility known as Tepco plans to borrow 2 trillion yen in fresh loans from lenders, President Naomi Hirose (pictured), 60, said in … Continue reading →
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