Japan In Depth / TEPCO Measures Fail To Hold Water

By Eiji Noyori and Hiroyuki Oyama / the-japan-times.com / September 11, 2014 / Three and a half years after the outbreak of the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, efforts to contain water contaminated with radioactive substances at the plant are at a crossroads. Resolving the radioactive water issue is the first hurdle toward decommissioning the plant. However, despite the time that has passed since the beginning … Continue reading

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Op-ed: The Lessons of Fukushima and Proposed Reactor Restarts

by 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

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What Fukushima Means to Me

by Yumiko Sato / Huffington Post / March 5, 2014 / As the third year anniversary of The Great Tohoku Earthquake approaches on March 11, what does Fukushima mean to us, Japanese? The answer depends on who you ask: For many, it is a constant reminder of the nuclear power plant accident, the reason to protest against the danger of nuclear power, a place where their donations and prayers are … Continue reading

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Dismantling Fukushima: The World’s Toughest Demolition Project

via spectrum.ieeee.org / February 28, 2014 / A radiation-proof superhero could make sense of Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in an afternoon. Our champion would pick through the rubble to reactor 1, slosh through the pooled water inside the building, lift the massive steel dome of the protective containment vessel, and peek into the pressure vessel that holds the nuclear fuel. A dive to the bottom would reveal the … Continue reading

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NHK falls prey to Streisand Effect

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

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Fukushima: Why It Matters and Why We Don’t Need to Panic

by 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

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Monitoring the Plumes…Or Not

via 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

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Worst-case scenario thinking and Fukushima radiation

via 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

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Fukushima Meltdowns: A Global Conspiracy of Denial

via Global Research / January 5, 2013 / Does anyone in authority anywhere tell the truth about Fukushima?   If there is any government or non-government authority in the world that is addressing the disaster at Fukushima openly, directly, honestly, and effectively, it’s not apparent to the outside observer what entity that might be. There is instead an apparent global conspiracy of authorities of all sorts to deny to the public … Continue reading

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EDITORIAL: Abe should confront the reality of Fukushima radiation leaks

via The Asahi Shimbun / Sep 21, 2013 / In the wee hours of Sept. 20, a strong earthquake measuring a 5-plus on the Japanese seismic scale struck Fukushima Prefecture. Its epicenter was in the Hamadori area in the eastern part of the prefecture, where the wrecked Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant is located. Even though it caused no damage to the some 1,000 storage tanks within the plant … Continue reading

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EDITORIAL: Abe should confront the reality of Fukushima radiation leaks

via The Asahi Shimbun / Sep 21, 2013 / In the wee hours of Sept. 20, a strong earthquake measuring a 5-plus on the Japanese seismic scale struck Fukushima Prefecture. Its epicenter was in the Hamadori area in the eastern part of the prefecture, where the wrecked Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant is located. Even though it caused no damage to the some 1,000 storage tanks within the plant … Continue reading

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The Consequences of Inaction at #Fukushima Daiichi

via JapanFocus.org /  Sep 1, 2013 / by Andrew DeWit and Christopher Hobson / Japan’s searing summer of 2013 saw the lid slide further off Fukushima Daiichi and its Pandora’s box of radioactive and political crises. The company in charge, Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), already Japan’s most distrusted firm,2 was irredeemably exposed as dangerously incompetent. A slew of reports concerning leaks of high-level radiation led to increasingly concerned appeals, … Continue reading

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Water, Water Everywhere: Incentives and Options at #Fukushima Daiichi and Beyond

by Andrew DeWit / JapanFocus.org / August 16, 2013 / Japan’s ruined and radioactive reactor plant at Fukushima Daiichi has been an abiding source of concern among knowledgeable observers. There are a host of good reasons for this reemergence. As this Mainichi survey observes, it is now clear that several hundred tons of radiation-contaminated water is entering the ocean per day. Over the past week, it suddenly returned as an … Continue reading

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Pump and pray: #Tepco might have to pour water on #Fukushima wreckage forever

via RT.com  /  by Prof. Christopher Busby / August 9, 2013 / Fukushima is a nightmare disaster area, and no one has the slightest idea what to do. The game is to prevent the crippled nuclear plant from turning into an “open-air super reactor spectacular” which would result in a hazardous, melted catastrophe. On April 25, 2011 – one month after the explosions at the Fukushima nuclear plant and the … Continue reading

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