Japan - 8.9 Earthquake - Fukushima Meltdown

[Kaigen]

...and there is the question about water.

_http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/ap-interview-japan-nuke-plant-water-worries-rise-17558654?singlePage=true#.UIkCyMVmLO5

About 200,000 tons of radioactive water — enough to fill more than 50 Olympic-sized swimming pools — are being stored in hundreds of gigantic tanks built around the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant. Operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. has already chopped down trees to make room for more tanks and predicts the volume of water will more than triple within three years.

I think this is just the tip of the iceberg.

 

[Kaigen]

The Muddy Issue of Cesium in a Lake

_http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fl20121118x3.html

For pictures go to the article.

Lake Kasumigaura in Ibaraki Prefecture is facing an environmental threat that has essentially turned it into a time bomb ticking away 60 km northeast of Tokyo.
Experts warn that Japan's second largest lake with a surface area of 220 sq. km is quietly but steadfastly accumulating radioactive cesium released from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

It's no big surprise. The lake's catchment area is huge, covering 2,200 sq. km across 24 municipalities in Ibaraki, Chiba and Tochigi prefectures. It doesn't take a genius to understand that the radiation that fell across some of the Tohoku region, and beyond, in the wake of the March 2011 nuclear disaster found its way into the area's rivers and thus flowed into the lake. In addition to that, Lake Kasumigaura, which is the name given to three contiguous lakes (the largest is Lake Nishiura and the other two are called Kitaura and Sotonasakaura), is a closed lake with no outflow. That means incoming radioactive substances have nowhere else to go.

More disturbing than this, however, is that 20 months after the nuclear crisis, government agencies have shown no signs that they are trying to prevent the accumulation of cesium in the lake — which is not only rich with fishery resources but whose water is used for irrigation, industrial purposes, and even for consumption as drinking water for 960,000 people in Ibaraki Prefecture. Furthermore, no one knows how and by how much the problem has worsened over the months, except for one obvious thing: it hasn't gone away.

Hiroshi Iijima, director general of the nonprofit organization Asaza Fund in Ushiku, Ibaraki Prefecture, has tried to alert the public to the situation for months. "What's unique about Kasumigaura, as opposed to other lakes across the nation, is that it's fed by numerous small rivers and streams, not only the 56 rivers running directly into the lake but also hundreds of tributaries," Iijima told The Japan Times. "Also, the area is flat, meaning that the radioactive substances travel downstream very slowly; they will accumulate in the lake over a long period of time."

In the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster, the Environment Ministry and the Ibaraki Prefectural Government have been measuring cesium levels in mud and sludge once every three months at eight sample points in the lake and at 56 sample points at the bottom of the rivers flowing into it. According to the latest round of monitoring, which was the fourth of its kind, and carried out in September and October, no traceable amount of cesium was detected in the water itself. The mud samples from the lake and the rivers, meanwhile, were found to contain up to 5,200 becquerels/kg of cesium-134 and cesium-137, compared with a maximum of 500 Bq/kg detected a year ago, a maximum of 5,800 Bq/kg in February this year and a maximum of 4,800 Bq/kg in July. The sludge sampled from the bottom of the lake registered cesium contamination ranging from 97 Bq/kg to 520 Bq/kg. That is lower than the maximum 1,300 Bq/kg registered in February, but higher than the 340 Bq/kg detected in the first round of monitoring a year ago. The government safety limit for cesium-tainted food is 10 Bq/kg for water and 100 Bq/kg for most other foods. The mud samples from Kasumigaura have surpassed these figures, but mud is usually not ingested as food. Government regulations state that soil containing more than 8,000 Bq/kg of cesium is considered to emit levels of radiation that pose a danger to human health and therefore must be sealed away.

Based on those results, the Environment Ministry concluded in a report released Oct. 30 that the overall figures show that the contamination of rivers, the lake and water supply sites (in and around Kasumigaura) "has leveled off, or is in a downward trend."

The article is beat long so, for the rest go to _http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fl20121118x3.html

 

[Kaigen]

Tepco may be hiding unknown explosion occurred on 3/16/2011

_http://fukushima-diary.com/2012/11/tepco-may-be-hiding-unknown-explosion-occurred-on-3162011/

NHK reported the spiking up of radiation level was monitored on 3/16/2011 at Fukushima Daini, where is 12km south to Daiichi. This plant did not have meltdown supposedly.

The radiation level jumped up from 20 μSv/h to 87.7 μSv/h, when was from 9:40AM to 9:50AM of 3/16/2011.

The data had not been published until NHK requested Tepco for disclosure.

Officially, there was no plant explosion on 3/16/2011.

It is confirmed that around at 8:30AM of the same day, huge amount of white smoke was spouting out from reactor3. At 10:40AM, 10,000μSv/h of radiation was monitored at the entrance of Fukushima daiichi plant. However, NISA reported it may be from reactor2 for some reason. They heard the explosive sound from reactor2 on 3/15/2011, but it’s not 3/16/2011 and it didn’t have an explosion supposedly.

Also, around at 5:45AM of the same day, it is confirmed that reactor4 had fire on the North-West side of the 4th floor. However, details have never been reported.

It is still not known what exactly happened to cause the unusual radiation spiking up in the morning of 3/16/2011, when none of the plants were supposed to have exploded.

Tepco is stating that they are going to investigate why they did not publish the data.

Japanese sources are given in the article.

_http://www9.nhk.or.jp/kabun-blog/200/138225.html
_http://jp.reuters.com/article/topNews/idJPJAPAN-20063820110316
_http://kiikochan.blog136.fc2.com/blog-entry-2547.html

 

[Kaigen]

Iori just nail it on the head, what is happening right now in Japan:

Japan is going to have the 3rd prime minister after 311 from the election planned on 12/16.
The new prime minister is likely to be Abe of LDP. He is known to be right wing.
Also, Ishihara, the former Tokyo governor joined the party of Hashimoto, the Osaka mayor, and both of them are radical right wing.

These three parties are anticipated to get united and dominate the major part of House of Representatives, which is a quite similar political situation of Japan to the one during WWW2.
There is no powerful left wing in Japan, so it is impossible to take a balance.

These three political powers have been insisting to change Japanese constitution, including article 9 (The renunciation of war). The recent conflict between China and Japan over the far south island called Senkaku / Diaoyu was caused by Ishihara and media spread the atmosphere of war time and arouse the feeling of patriotism.
Sometimes it’s compared to Falklands war but it is very different because they are the 2nd and 3rd economically largest countries. Self-protective atmosphere of the people would make it easier for them to change the constitution, and if they manage to change the constitution, conscription can also be legalized. In the current Japanese constitution, conscription is banned.

They have already been misleading the people by using the feeling of patriotism since just after 311. The famous slogan is “Support by eating”, “Let’s share the pain”, and also “Kizuna / Emotional bond”. They were used to make people consume contaminated food and spread disaster debris all around in Japan.
Whatever the intention was, people did not attack each other for the very limited clean food and the potential cancer rate may become flat so even if the cancer rate jumps up in Fukushima, they can tell it’s not only in Fukushima, it’s every where in Japan thanks to those propagandas.

Some of the Japanese people are afraid that the right wing power may use the patriotism more directly for Fukushima accident -conscription.

So far, Japanese government is still holding the policy to let people live in Fukushima by decontaminating. However, decontaminating all around in Fukushima prefecture is estimated to cost 10~100 trillion yen though it’s so much cheaper to give the money to each family to let them move.

Three possible reasons are suggested why they stick to this irrational policy.

To keep the body of Fukushima prefectural government for the employment.
To keep the salary and retirement salary of the public officers in Fukushima prefecture.
To keep Fukushima citizens remaining near the plant for the supply of plant workers.

Whatever the reason is, it is starting to be known that entire decontamination is impossible (Radiation is still being leaked from Fukushima plants every single second.) technically, and financially.

In October, Tepco decided to send all the employees for Fukushima. This is mandatory and they have to go twice or three times a year.
However, this would be still not enough to take the human-wave tactics to decommission Fukushima plant.

What some of the Japanese people are afraid of is that the government impose the idea on people that going to Fukushima plant is patriotic. (meaning, un-patriotic people would not go to Fukushima plant.)
Japanese government took the same tactics during WWW2 to recruit students for army. People were called “Hikokumin (=Un-Japanese)” if they reject going to the battle field and oppose the war.
Japanese people tend to have strong group mind and they are very sensitive for peer pressure so this propaganda can easily control Japanese people.

They have already started sending high school students to the disaster area for clean up the debris etc..It’s likely that they make it a credit necessary to graduate from schools to go to Fukushima (plant).

In Chernobyl, 600,000 ~ 800,000 workers were conscripted to settle down the plant. Most of them are told to have already died.
In Japan, 3~4 reactors exploded and each reactor still has spent fuel pool. This is something that nobody has ever encountered in human history. It is almost impossible to estimate how much it costs until decommissioning and how many workers would be needed in total. Roughly estimated, it can be 4 times much as Chernobyl, which is 2,400,000 ~ 3,200,000 people to be conscripted and die.
Fukushima conscription is different from ordinary conscription in the meaning that all of the conscripted people would be exposed to drastically shorten their lives. They would be all promised to die in the miserable way.

These three political powers are for nuclear power. Thanks to the media propaganda and uncreative handling of protests, anti-nuclear movement had become not influent over the political situation anymore. People are starting to believe nuclear power is necessary for economic growth again regardless of the fact that Japan has not made any economic growth for these 20 years even with nuclear power.

If they restart other nuclear plants in Japan, the shortage of nuclear workers will be more serious.

To spread the propaganda such as “Support by eating”, billions of yen was paid for media by the government. The website of “Support by eating” is hosted by “Dentsu”, the Japanese largest advertisement company. Spreading patriotism would be a new big business.

 

[anart]

Iori just nail it on the head, what is happening right now in Japan:

Dear god, are they that ignorant or do they truly not care that the people they send near the plant are going to die very early deaths?

 

[Aeneas]

Iori just nail it on the head, what is happening right now in Japan:

Dear god, are they that ignorant or do they truly not care that the people they send near the plant are going to die very early deaths?

Given that they are already sharing the disaster debris all over Japan and encouraging everyone to eat contaminated food, it truly is psychopathic behaviour and one that could spell the end for the Japanese people, not to mention Japan itself. Horrific! The oft quoted saying comes to mind, that psychopath are like viruses that do not see that in killing the body they too will die.

I would also say that the continued unfolding of events in Japan, is one of the most underreported events of the year. Not a soundbyte in the Western media. The nuclear lobby sure has power and influence.

 

[Aya]

Thank you for sharing, Kaigen. This is a really good article as an eye opener.

It is still shocking sometimes that the information I receive about the current situation in Japan on the internet is 180 degree different from what I hear on the Japanese mainstream media.
In the last three months, Japan media was mainly focusing on the political upheaval between Japan and China over Senkaku island. I think the media did the most part to make it sounds like a serious issue, causing tens of thousands of passangers cancel flight on Japan-China routes.

And the media is continuously reporting chaotic situations inside the parliament. Again they are confusing people by changing the Prime Minister and refocusing to change on article 9 (The renunciation of war) -which I think PTB was trying to get rid of it for a very long time and now they are finding more reasons to support the change. People all know that we cannot trust anybody in the position of power. But we can hardly blame anyone in person (even the Prime Minister) because nobody seems to be responsible...

They have already been misleading the people by using the feeling of patriotism since just after 311. The famous slogan is “Support by eating”, “Let’s share the pain”, and also “Kizuna / Emotional bond”. They were used to make people consume contaminated food and spread disaster debris all around in Japan.

Still a lot of people are supporting these slogans and contributing for the coverups. This is happening to the detriment of Japanese's mind. Most people do not speak up so that each person uncounsciouslly worrying about the situation but it is kept to be slient.

What if this was happened somewhere else around the world? I imagine that if it was happened in Europe or North America, TEPCO's main building would have been destroyed by now.

So far, Japanese government is still holding the policy to let people live in Fukushima by decontaminating.

They have no wish for any change in the status quo. Cleaning up Fukushima is not happpening, it takes 100 years to take down daiichi nuclear power plant as Arnie Gundersen says. Many people are twitting symptons of children in Fukushima who are living in the area for while after 3.11. Some children are getting bleeding nose, diarreha, and purpura etc. These things are never mentioned on the media.

In October, Tepco decided to send all the employees for Fukushima. This is mandatory and they have to go twice or three times a year.
However, this would be still not enough to take the human-wave tactics to decommission Fukushima plant.

What some of the Japanese people are afraid of is that the government impose the idea on people that going to Fukushima plant is patriotic. (meaning, un-patriotic people would not go to Fukushima plant.)
Japanese government took the same tactics during WWW2 to recruit students for army. People were called “Hikokumin (=Un-Japanese)” if they reject going to the battle field and oppose the war.
Japanese people tend to have strong group mind and they are very sensitive for peer pressure so this propaganda can easily control Japanese people.

They have already started sending high school students to the disaster area for clean up the debris etc..It’s likely that they make it a credit necessary to graduate from schools to go to Fukushima (plant).

It is very sad. History is repeating itself...

 

[Aya]

Please do not forget the fact that many people are continuously part of the nuclear opposition movement.

The below are the pictures from July 29th, 2012 "NO-nuclear encirclement of the Parliament" - 7.29 「脱原発 国会大包囲」

Next pictures are from November 11th, 2012 "No nuclear Occupy with One Million People"- 11.11 「反原発100万人大占拠」

 

[Voyageur]

Please do not forget the fact that many people are continuously part of the nuclear opposition movement.

The below are the pictures from July 29th, 2012 "NO-nuclear encirclement of the Parliament" - 7.29 「脱原発 国会大包囲」

Good to know more and more are trying - thanks for the pictures. If a greater part of the population of 127 million + in Japan spoke in a unified voice, demanding truth, the PTB would be laid bare for all to see. May they find the unified courage.

 

[Kaigen]

Things going worse for Fukushima residence

Mr. Idogawa, Futaba town mayor has been talking about the spreading health problems including his own at the House of Councilors and Geneva.

On 5/5/2012, Fukushima Diary reported his testimony as well. (cf. Futaba town mayor “Fukushima medical university stops us from having exposure test.” [Link])
On 12/7/2012, the town assembly decided to demand him to resign in the beginning of this week.

Japanese government has the policy to make Fukushima people stay in Fukushima to accept the risk of radiation. (cf. National Institute of Public Health,”To make Africa accept nuclear plants, people must take risk and stay in Fukushima” [Link])

As this condition, Japanese government is committing into decontamination.

However, only 1.1% of the areas had been decontaminated at the moment of 10/11/2012 due to the lack of interim storage facility of radioactive soil produced by decontamination. (cf. Decontamination produced 260,000 bags of radioactive soil, “Still it’s 1.1% of all” [Link])

Japanese government wanted to build the interim storage facility in Futaba county but it was turned down by the local government.
On 11/28/2012, Fukushima prefectural government and 8 municipal government held a meeting about acceptance of “field research” to build interim storage facility, but Mr. Idogawa did not attend it.
The town assembly made the statement that his absence from this meeting caused fear for the municipal governments and town residents.
On 12/7/2012, when they demanded Mr. Idogawa to resign, town assembly also submitted the demanding paper to accept the field research to build interim storage facility.

Source 1 2

_http://fukushima-diary.com/2012/12/purge-town-assembly-to-demand-mr-idogawa-futabamachi-mayor-to-resign-for-acceptance-of-interim-storage-facility-of-soil-from-decontamination/

 

[Voyageur]

Arnie unpacks again the engineering failures and refusal to acknowledge these engineering design flaws in his latest address (Dec 17th, 2012) of the recent TEPCO analysis, and of course he points out lies the NRC keeps telling citizens, particularly in the US with their current atomic infrastructures. The NRC, he discusses, likes to use words (about withholding information) like "sensitive security information" when it has everything to do with just plain safety information - reason $$$; the first usual suspect.

Arnie points out, imo rightly, that the immediate change (considering these atomic tea water boilers continue to be a reality) is to acknowledge that first and foremost the pumping generators need to be designed as submersible units, not systems that are ready to fail, and the NRC will not go there ($$$ again).

Loss of the Ultimate Heat Sink

_http://www.fairewinds.com/

December 17, 2012

More Lessons From the Fukushima Daiichi Accident: Containment Failures and the Loss of the Ultimate Heat Sink
In this Monday's video, Fairewinds investigates a recently released report from Tokyo Electric. Arnie Gundersen discusses TEPCO's latest analysis that, almost two years after the accident, fully substantiates Fairewinds long held position that the explosion at Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3 was the result of a detonation shock wave. Arnie also discusses troubling reports that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been avoiding the analysis of damage to many nuclear plants' emergency cooling systems (Ultimate Heat Sink) from storm surges, tsunamis or dam failures. The ramifications of both of these issues on old designs and also the AP1000 are also analyzed in depth.

 

[Kaigen]

Here is what Mochizuki wrote yesterday:

_http://fukushima-diary.com/2012/12/column-25th-month-of-2011-is-starting/

Someone I know on Twitter moved to South east Asia.
It was due to the business of her husband, but for her, it was an evacuation.
She was with her children in Chiba, where is known to be hotspot.
She was tweeting she had nosebleed and her children had fatigue, feverish symptoms etc..
They were very concerned but had to stay there for longer than a year.

She had her children have blood test in the new country, but the result was not very good.
It showed the decrease of white blood cells, red blood cells, platelet etc.. and the children were still claiming unusual fatigue.

The second year is going to end soon. I’m starting to be afraid it might be already too late to evacuate.
Some people have already taken too much of radioactive material from air, water and food.

I sometimes think about what to post on Fukushima Diary. I like to be logically clear.
Shutting down the nuclear plants, decommissioning Fukushima plant, minimizing radiation exposure, they are all unique issues. Even if you shut down all the nuclear plants, you still keep being exposed. Also, decommissioning Fukushima plant doesn’t help us shutting down other nuclear plants. They are different issues.

I personally think evacuation is the ultimate resolution, and I did that.
Evacuation helps you stop being exposed, and because I don’t have to pay electricity bill, it helps us shutting down the plants, which can improve decommissioning too.
However, it is not easy for most of the people.

2011 never ends. It’s only the beginning of 25th month of 2011.
The longer it takes, the worse it goes.

What to do ? This is the question.
Most of Japanese people look like they are stunned by shock, and chose slow death.
Slow death is the way of living by following the trend and expecting to die before the pain comes.
However, the pain is passed to the next generation. This is how you earn your time by sacrificing the life of children.

I don’t wish too much. I just hope as many children as possible to manage to get out of the prison.

One is better than zero. Two is better than one. This is the first thing and the last thing I think about every single day.

It's making me sad to watching it too. My family from Tokyo is here for Holidays and looks like this theme is Tabu. Only nice holiday time talk is allowed.

 

[Kaigen]

For better understanding here is infographic about radiation.

 

[Kaigen]

New Documentary from Women of Fukushima came out on January 5th.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OISI5nnvn4s&list=WLACA9AA9BE5BDA0FD

 

[LQB]

New Documentary from Women of Fukushima came out on January 5th.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OISI5nnvn4s&list=WLACA9AA9BE5BDA0FD

Excellent videos - thanks Kaigen!