by Simon Tisdall / via The Guardian / November 19, 2013 / The catastrophic triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in March 2011 was “a warning to the world” about the hazards of nuclear power and contained lessons for the British government as it plans a new generation of nuclear power stations, the man with overall responsibility for the operation in Japan has told the Guardian. Speaking at … Continue reading →
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via Russia Today / Japan’s lower house has passed a heavy-handed state secrets act despite fears that it will have severe repercussions for state freedoms. Officials will now face a maximum punishment of ten years in prison if they are found to have leaked to the press. Japan’s Diet (parliament) passed the bill, which is aimed at expanding the definition of a state secret and place increasing penalties upon anyone … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Energy Business Review / Tokyo Electric Power Company has transported 22 fuel assemblies from the Unit 4 of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan. Loaded into a cask (pictured), the fuel assemblies were transferred from the crippled reactor building to the nearby common pool building at the power plant for safe storage. The extraction of fuel from the Unit 4 spent fuel pool will pause shortly for … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Energy Business Review / Tokyo Electric Power Company has transported 22 fuel assemblies from the Unit 4 of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan. Loaded into a cask (pictured), the fuel assemblies were transferred from the crippled reactor building to the nearby common pool building at the power plant for safe storage. The extraction of fuel from the Unit 4 spent fuel pool will pause shortly for … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Russia Today / Thousands of people protested in Tokyo against a bill that would see whistle-blowing civil servants jailed for up to 10 years. Activists claim the law would help the government to cover up scandals, and damage the country’s constitution and democracy. A 3,000-seat outdoor theater in a park in downtown Tokyo, near the parliament, was not enough to contain everyone who came on Thursday to denounce government … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Russia Today / Thousands of people protested in Tokyo against a bill that would see whistle-blowing civil servants jailed for up to 10 years. Activists claim the law would help the government to cover up scandals, and damage the country’s constitution and democracy. A 3,000-seat outdoor theater in a park in downtown Tokyo, near the parliament, was not enough to contain everyone who came on Thursday to denounce government … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia NHK World / The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is preparing to complete the first transfer of nuclear fuel from a reactor building to a safer storage pool. On Thursday, Tokyo Electric Power Company moved the batch of nuclear fuel from the No. 4 reactor building to a nearby facility housing the safer pool. TEPCO workers used a trailer to carry a cask containing 22 unused fuel … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Russia Today / Homeless men employed cleaning up the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant, including those brought in by Japan’s yakuza gangsters, were not aware of the health risks they were taking and say their bosses treated them like “disposable people.” RT’s Aleksey Yaroshevsky, reporting from the site of the world’s worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl, met with a former Fukushima worker who was engaged in the clean-up operation. … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Associated Press / November 19, 2013 / It’s costly, risky and dependent on technologies that have yet to be fully developed. A decades-long journey filled with unknowns lies ahead for Japan, which took a small step this week toward decommissioning its crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant. Nobody knows exactly how much fuel melted after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami knocked out cooling systems. Or where exactly the fuel … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia EX-SKF / November 20, 2013 / TEPCO started removing fuel assemblies stored in Reactor 4 Spent Fuel Pool on November 18, 2013. 4 unused (new) assemblies containing about 60 fuel rods each were removed to the cask by 6:45PM. The work continues on November 19, 2013, and TEPCO hopes to load the cask with 22 unused (new) fuel assemblies before the cask is lowered by the gantry crane to … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Russia Today / November 18, 2013 / In a highly risky undertaking Fukushima plant operators have finally begun removing over 1,500 nuclear fuel rods from one of the four reactors at its damaged nuclear power plant in northeastern Japan on Monday. The operation is expected to take at least a year hailed as a key first step toward a full cleanup of the plant. Unit 4 of the Fukushima … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia EX-SKF / November 18, 2013 / Move over, three fuel assemblies with damaged/deformed fuel rods inside in the Reactor 4 Spent Fuel Pool! You’re nothing. According to Kahoku Shinpo, a Fukushima local paper, TEPCO admitted on November 15, 2013 that there are 70 fuel assemblies with damaged fuel rods in the Reactor 1 Spent Fuel Pool, located on the operating floor (top floor) of the reactor building whose air radiation … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Kyodo News / Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Friday it will start removing nuclear fuel from the spent fuel pool of the No. 4 reactor building at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant from Monday (Nov. 18) “Full-scale removal (from the accident-stricken unit) is a very important process in moving ahead with the plant’s decommissioning,” TEPCO spokesman Masayuki Ono told a press conference, adding that the experience will be useful … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia EX-SKF / It must be from the explosion! Or from something TEPCO has done since the accident, whatever it is! No. If TEPCO is to be believed, TEPCO has been hiding the damages for at least 10 years; the oldest damage was from 25 years ago. According to the Yomiuri Shinbun, that’s not clear, and you would be excused if you thought the damages were recent (after March 11, … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia NHK World / November 14, 2013 / A robot at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has for the first time identified exactly where highly radioactive water is leaking from a reactor. Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, on Wednesday succeeded in sending a remote-controlled robot close to the lower part of the No.1 reactor’s containment vessel. The lower section is filled with contaminated water injected to … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Asahi Shimbun / A record high level of 710,000 becquerels of beta-ray sources, such as radioactive strontium, was detected per liter of water in an observation well at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant. Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Nov. 12 the water was taken Nov. 10 at the well 10 meters north of a tank that leaked 300 tons of highly contaminated water before the problem was … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Reuters / November 13, 2013 / The operator of Japan‘s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant will as early as this week begin removing 400 tonnes of highly irradiated spent fuel in a hugely delicate and unprecedented operation fraught with risk. Carefully plucking more than 1,500 brittle and potentially damaged fuel assemblies from the plant’s unstable Reactor No. 4 is expected to take about a year, and will be seen as … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Reuters / November 11, 2013 / For many of Japan’s oldest nuclear refugees, all they want is to be allowed back to the homes they were forced to abandon. Others are ready to move away, severing ties to the ghost towns that remain in the shadow of the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant. But among the thousands of evacuees stuck in temporary housing more than two and a half years … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Japan Times / November 11, 2013 / The first wind turbine in an experimental project by the University of Tokyo and 10 companies started generating electricity Monday off the coast of Fukushima Prefecture. The turbine, equipped with 80-meter-long blades, floats on the sea some 20 km off the town of Naraha. It will deliver up to 2,000 kilowatts to Tohoku Electric Power Co. through a floating substation and underwater … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia The Guardian / November 8, 2013 / Gazing down at the glassy surface of the spent fuel pool inside the No 4 reactor building at Fukushima Daiichi, it is easy to underestimate the danger posed by the highly toxic contents of its murky depths. But this lofty, isolated corner of the wrecked nuclear power plant is now the focus of global attention as Japan enters the most critical stage … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia CommonDreams.org / November 5, 2013 / Preparations to begin the potentially catastrophic decommissioning of the crippled Reactor 4 at the Fukushima nuclear power plant will begin this week with a test run. The test, which could push back the beginning stages of fuel rod removal by two weeks, includes moving a “protective fuel cask” into and out of the No. 4 storage pool with a crane—before attempts are made … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Japan Times / November 5, 2013 / With Tepco due to begin removing more than 1,300 spent-fuel rod assemblies and nearly 200 fresh ones from the reactor 4 pool at the Fukushima No. 1 plant this month, global pressure is mounting to allow an international task force to monitor and assist the highly hazardous operation. A former Japanese ambassador to Switzerland, anti-nuclear groups in Japan and abroad, nuclear engineers, … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia The Guardian / November 7, 2013 / A video animation by the operators of the Fukushima plant, the Tokyo Electric Company, shows how 1,534 damaged fuel rods will be removed from the site. A robotic crane will move the rods from a storage pool damaged by March 2011′s earthquake and stored more securely in an on-site facility.
Continue readingvia JapanFocus.org / November 4, 2013 / With the third anniversary of Fukushima’s triple meltdown approaching, stories of incompetence and corruption in the nuclear cleanup are rife. A team of Reuters’ reporters working in Japan has researched working conditions at Fukushima Daiichi and decontamination jobs outside the plant. Their findings are shocking. Their report focuses on the testimony of three workers with different backgrounds: Hayashi Tetsuya, 41, whose case was … Continue reading →
Continue readingby Mark Willacy / ABC / November 5, 2013 / CLICK HERE FOR MP3 AUDIO REPORT TRANSCRIPT TONY EASTLEY: One of the terrible legacies of the radioactive fallout from the Russian disaster at Chernobyl is now being visited upon people in Japan. Researchers in Fukushima are uncovering higher than expected rates of thyroid cancer in children. One prominent former thyroid surgeon – a veteran of the Chernobyl disaster – has … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia ENE News / Nov. 5, 2013 / The utility had intended to start removing the fuel rods from the unit’s packed cooling pool as early as Friday. The test was requested by the Japan Nuclear Energy Safety Organization. The government-affiliated agency called for an initial test that would include transporting a protective fuel cask from the No. 4 storage pool to another pool in a different building about 100 … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia RT / October 25, 2013 / Many issues of national importance to Japan, probably including the state of the Fukushima power plant, may be designated state secrets under a new draft law. Once signed, it could see whistleblowers jailed for up to 10 years. Japan has relatively lenient penalties for exposing state secrets compared to many other nations, but that may change with the introduction of the new law. … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia ex-SKF / October 21, 2013 / The ex-McKinsey management consultant never ceases to entertain (albeit in a bad way). The last I heard Mr. Toshimitsu Motegi was when he said there would be more space to install storage tanks for contaminated water once Reactors 5 and 6 at Fukushima I NPP were decommissioned, casting doubt about his intelligence level. He was also pontificating over the talk between TEPCO and … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia RT / October 20, 2013 / Water has overflowed at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) is attempting to discern the quality of the water and possible radioactive substances which could have been spilled. TEPCO announced on Monday that the water overflowed in 12 areas of the plant. Heavy rains caused water to flow over the barriers of an artificial embankment which surrounds a dozen … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Arirang News / October 22, 2013 / Japan’s Environment Ministry was forced to acknowledge Monday that the decontamination of six towns around the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant will have to be delayed by up to three years. The clean-up was originally due to be complete by next March, but has been pushed back mostly due to lack of storage for contaminated cooling water from damaged reactors. The Fukushima plant … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Press TV / October 14, 2013 / The International Atomic Energy Agency has for a second time sent a team of experts to Japan to monitor the clean-up operation at the nuclear power plant in Fukushima. The IAEA team, which includes 16 nuclear specialists, arrived in the Japanese capital, Tokyo, on Monday for a week-long mission at the request of the Japanese government. “We want to carefully analyze the … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Business Insider In March 2011, one of the most devastating earthquakes on record hit Japan, setting off a chain reaction that included a tsunami and a disastrous nuclear power plant meltdown. The Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant disaster was the largest Nuclear incident since Chernobyl and caused radiation leakage that has lasted to this day. The plant is still not stable. Hundreds of thousands of residents living within 12 miles … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Japan Times / October 6, 2013 / Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Sunday requested more foreign assistance in cleaning up the Fukushima No. 1 power plant, where work has been plagued by the radioactive water crisis. “Our country needs your knowledge and expertise” in coping with the aftermath of the triple meltdown triggered by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, Abe said in a speech in English at an … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia The Japan News / October 3, 2013 / Former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Japan should abandon nuclear power. “I’m calling for zero nuclear power,” he said in a speech in Nagoya. The 2011 earthquake and tsunami, which triggered a nuclear crisis at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 plant, should be taken as an opportunity to build a resource-recycling society without nuclear power, he said on Tuesday. … Continue reading →
Continue readingFaith Aquino / The Japan Daily Press / Oct 2, 2013 Japanese fast food chain Yoshinoya dares to farm in Fukushima Prefecture, home of the world’s worst nuclear meltdown in two decades, where they plan to harvest rice and vegetable produce as ingredients for their dishes. Yoshinoya Holdings said it has collaborated with local farmers in the prefecture, forming the Yoshinoya Farm Fukushima. Yoshinoya and local farmers will be utilizing … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia The Japan News / September 30, 2013 / Tokyo Electric Power Co. President Naomi Hirose revealed in an interview with The Yomiuri Shimbun on Saturday the company’s plans to decommission the Nos. 5 and 6 reactors at its Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. In the interview, Hirose said the two reactors will never again be used for power generation. The permanent shutdown of the Nos. 5 and 6 … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia The Mainichi / Sep 26, 2013 / Fishery products caught off Fukushima Prefecture were ready for trial sale as early as Sept. 26 after fisheries cooperatives here resumed test fishing the day before. Some 5.2 tons of 11 varieties of fish — including octopus, horsehair crab, blackbelly rosefish and angler — were landed at the Matsukawaura Port in Soma, northern Fukushima Prefecture, after 21 dragnet fishing boats returned there … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia News on Japan / Sep 26, 2013 / The operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant says underwater barriers in the facility’s port have been breached. The so-called silt fences are intended to prevent the spread of radioactive materials. Tokyo Electric Power Company officials said on Thursday they found damage in the curtain-like barriers near the intake canals of the No. 5 and 6 reactors. The silt fences … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia NHK World / Sep 25, 2013 / The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant says it will soon test a filtration system that could remove most radioactive substances from accumulated wastewater at the site. The Advanced Liquid Processing System (pictured) is the key to Tokyo Electric Power Company’s plans to purify radioactive-contaminated water that keeps accumulating at the plant. The company hopes to completely decontaminate the stored waste … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Independent Web Journal / Sep 24, 2013 / The radioactive discharge problem at Tepco’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is bringing worldwide attention to Japan’s ability to deal with the continuing crisis at Fukushima. PRESS CONFERENCE 9/24 Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan: Gregory Jaczko, Former Chairman, US Nuclear Regulatory Commission Torgen Johnson, Citizens’ Representative, San Diego Forum Tetsuro Tsutsui, Member Nuclear Regulation Sub-committee, Citizens’ Commission on Nuclear Energy (CCNE) … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Japan Times / Sep 24, 2013 / Fishing operations off the coast of Fukushima Prefecture were set to resume Wednesday, about a month after leaks of contaminated water at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant forced trial operations to be put on hold. The Fukushima Prefectural Federation of Fisheries Cooperative Associations said Tuesday that “through tests we know the radioactive levels of the fish are not an issue and … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Japan Times / Re: “Fukushima and the right to responsible government” by Colin P.A. Jones (The Foreign Element, Sept. 17): It would be useful if the government of Japan would avail themselves of the assistance and technology that could be provided by foreign corporations with experience in the decommissioning of nuclear plants. The United States successfully cleaned and decommissioned nuclear facilities at Hanford, Washington, Rocky Flats, Colorado, and Portsmouth, … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia worldbulletin.net / Sep 23, 2013 / The Mayor of Tokyo, Naoki Inose, has indicated that the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe lied to the International Olympic Committee when he reassured them that contaminated water leaking from the Fukushima Nuclear Plant were “under control.” Inose publicly denounced the Japanese Prime Minister’s claim after telling reporters from Fuji TV that the water leak was “not necessarily under control” on Friday. Shinzo … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia EX-SKF / Sep 23, 2013 / As Japan celebrates “recovery” (at least in the stock market), 2020 Tokyo Olympic, maglev bullet train that will run under Japan Alps, there are still 100 people from Futaba-machi, Fukushima still living in the abandoned high school building in Saitama Prefecture, more than two and a half years after the earthquake and tsunami and the nuclear accident struck Tohoku and Kanto. Time has … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia The Asahi Shimbun / Sep 21, 2013 / TEPCO, resigned to never restarting its Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant as concerns grow over radioactive leaks, will turn the facility into a training base for decommissioning reactors. The plant operator has begun considering turning the 42-year-old plant into what would be called a “decommissioning center,” sources said Sept. 20. The new role for the plant will be included in … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia The Asahi Shimbun / Sep 21, 2013 / TEPCO, resigned to never restarting its Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant as concerns grow over radioactive leaks, will turn the facility into a training base for decommissioning reactors. The plant operator has begun considering turning the 42-year-old plant into what would be called a “decommissioning center,” sources said Sept. 20. The new role for the plant will be included in … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia The Japan Times / Sep 22, 2013 / Radioactive cesium has been found on an estimated 200 to 300 tons of wood chips that were left months ago near Lake Biwa in Shiga Prefecture, prefectural officials said. Samples of the chips show a reading of up to 3,000 becquerels per kilogram, the officials said Tuesday. The readings are below 8,000 becquerels, the threshold requiring special measures such as keeping … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia The Japan Times / Sep 22, 2013 / Radioactive cesium has been found on an estimated 200 to 300 tons of wood chips that were left months ago near Lake Biwa in Shiga Prefecture, prefectural officials said. Samples of the chips show a reading of up to 3,000 becquerels per kilogram, the officials said Tuesday. The readings are below 8,000 becquerels, the threshold requiring special measures such as keeping … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia 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 →
Continue readingvia 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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