PLAY UNTIL YOU CRY

via enenews.com

MASSIVE ANTI-NUCLEAR RALLY STAGED IN TOKYO

FINAL REPORT (1):

TEPCO, NISA's dilly-dallying caused 'man-made disaster'

Fukushima radiation sizzling at 10 sieverts 

in flooded basement of unit 1

Cesium in Baby Milk Powder

- Nuclear Risk for Japan Food -

IMPORTANT VIDEO ON FUKUSHIMA AND JAPAN NUCLEAR POWER TODAY

Part 2, Part 3

SPECIAL REPORT-Fukushima long ranked Japan's

most hazardous nuclear plant

"Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant ranked as one of the most dangerous in the world

for radiation exposure years before it was destroyed by the meltdowns and explosions...

After the earthquake, contract workers at Fukushima were sent in without radiation meters

or basic gear such as rubber boots. Screening for radiation from dust and vapor inhaled by workers

was delayed for weeks...

But that kind of stepped-up review never happened in Tokyo, where the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency remains an adjunct of the trade ministry charged with promoting nuclear power...

Because of Fukushima's high radiation, Tokyo Electric brought in thousands of workers each year,

often to work just a few days on the most hazardous jobs..."

More...

MORE THAN A MELTDOWN

"TEPCO has become a symbol of everything that is wrong with the nation of Japan: cronyism, collusion, gentrification, corruption, weak regulation, and entropy. Despite being in the spotlight for the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, TEPCO continues to engage in questionable labor practices, and has escaped bankruptcy in closed-door meetings with politicians, and through denying culpability has shifted part of the reparations burden onto taxpayers – deeds which testify to the extent to which TEPCO still has plenty of political power, if not as much nuclear power." 

TEPCO: Will Someone Turn Off the Lights?

IN JUST THREE MONTHS +

Three months. Hard work. Together. What’s new? We’ve done it this way before...

BTW: As to the sudden dearth in detailed US coverage of the aftermath of this world-altering event:  “The Fukushima reactors (Mark I) were built* by General Electric, which also owns Comcast, NBC, CNBC and MSNBC, so the absence of timely information is not surprising.”

*(Designed, actually; built by Japanese companies, though GE supplied the reactors for units 1, 2 and 6.)

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Fukushima: It's much worse than you think 

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Japan doubles initial estimate of nuclear radiation

A great many suspected the truth all along, but not Tesco and the government. In the light of their sudden wisdom, the authorities also pledged to make the country's nuclear regulator (Nisa) independent of the industry ministry, which, as it happens - who could have noticed - also promotes nuclear power. That should have been a no-brainer back then, when brains were as abundant as they are today. Wonder what they used instead... 

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Fukushima nuclear plant may have suffered 'melt-through', Japan admits

Fuel rods have probably breached containment vessels – 

a more serious scenario than core meltdown –

FUKUSHIMA UPDATE 6.1.11


Fukushima school limit: 1 millisievert

"The education ministry said Friday it has set a new nonbinding target to reduce radiation exposure of Fukushima Prefecture students while they are at school to 1 millisievert or less a year."

--

Parent anger plays role in Japan's reversal of raised radiation limits at schools

"In the playground, in the sandbox, children put dirt into their mouths! They breathe in the dust! You should do the same! Lick the dirt!" she shouted to applause. "You wouldn't do this to your own kids!"

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TEPCO's Flip-Flops Increase Confusion at Fukushima

“In a series of stunning flip-flops, officials at Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) have reversed themselves on several important statements made recently.”

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Radiation-linked cancer an intangible numbers game

“With contaminated produce continuing to be detected beyond Fukushima Prefecture, public concern over the health effects of radiation exposure continues to mount.
Experts agree that exposure to more than 100 millisieverts in total increases the risk of cancer. However, scientists have yet to achieve consensus about the degree of risk of contracting cancer below that level.”

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Fukushima Risks Chernobyl ‘Dead Zone’ as Radiation Soars

“Soil samples in areas outside the 20-kilometer (12 miles) exclusion zone around the Fukushima plant measured more than 1.48 million becquerels a square meter, the standard used for evacuating residents after the Chernobyl accident...”

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In Japan, a Culture That Promotes Nuclear Dependency

“When the Shimane nuclear plant was first proposed here more than 40 years ago, this rural port town put up such fierce resistance that the plant’s would-be operator, Chugoku Electric, almost scrapped the project. Angry fishermen vowed to defend areas where they had fished and harvested seaweed for generations.”

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Minister: Germany to go nuke free by 2022

FUKUSHIMA UPDATE 5.27.11

Latest family news: Kasumi and the girls will be leaving Ibaraki and coming to live near us later this week! Yay!

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Japanese superquake moved ocean floor 79 feet sideways and 10 feet up - and new data shows region is under more strain

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Fukushima Station Considered as Site for Nuclear Graveyard

“Tokyo Electric would need five years to complete decontamination of the reactors [that's expensive too!], which includes removal of hydrogen to prevent explosions, he said.

Building storage for radioactive waste at Fukushima could take at least 10 years, said Morokuzu, one of 50 people on a cleanup panel that includes observers from Tokyo Electric and the Trade Ministry. Tokyo Electric would need five years to complete decontamination of the reactors, which includes removal of hydrogen to prevent explosions, he said.
Japan’s three storage facilities for highly radioactive waste are at Rokkasho, at the northern tip of the country’s largest island of Honshu, and a nearby site at Sekinehama. The third site is at Tokaimura in Ibaraki prefecture, near Tokyo.”

But... but... what about all those experts, green and other colors, telling us for all lately  that nuclear power is so CLEAN! (You there, Sierra Club?) But it isn’t, is it it!!  And so CHEAP!! But it isn’t, is it!!! (Did you guys include the kind of actual econophysicopsychocosts we're seeing here and will see for the next decade and beyond? (Did your cost projections include sickness, death, loss of homes, loss of livelihood, emotional stress etc?)  And nuclear power is non-polluting!!! So why is it so expensive and toxic, deadly for children and everyone else, and why is it so what-the-hell-are-we-gonna-do-nowish? Why the silence?

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SURPRISE, SURPRISE!

Nuclear plant workers suffer internal radiation exposure after visiting Fukushima

"The government has discovered thousands of cases of workers [nearly 5000 so far!] at nuclear power plants outside Fukushima Prefecture suffering from internal exposure to radiation after they visited the prefecture..."

This is the first public mention of INTERNAL RADIATION [pdf] (the far more important kind) that I've seen in the media here; external radiation is minor in comparison. You leave external radiation behind; internal radiation becomes part of you. No wonder the nuclear powers that be never mention it; whole nations of formerly trusting subjects might seek residence elsewhere...

Which makes the following all the more egregious:

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Outrage as Japan lifts radiation limit for kids

"The new regulation means children can now be exposed to as much radiation as a German nuclear worker. 
The government argues the change is essential to keeping schools open in the Fukushima region.
According to Nobel Prize-winning group Physicians for Social Responsibility, the new limits mean exposed children now have a one-in-200 risk of getting cancer, compared with a one-in-500 risk for adults.
The decision provoked outrage from within Japan's government, with the prime minister's chief scientific adviser resigning in protest.
The government says it had no choice but to raise the legal exposure limit, saying about three-quarters of the schools in Fukushima have radiation levels above the old safety level of one millisievert.
The vast majority of schools would have closed, putting the education of hundreds of thousands of children on hold."

Apparently the Japanocracy feels that for children, higher risk of cancer is better than lower exposure to institutionalized, age-segregated education.

In such a malignant situation, subjecting the helpless children of un/misinformed parents to no choice at all could turn out to be a crime against humanity.

--

Here's an alternative almost nonexistent in Japan, where authorities feel a more malignant future is better for the kids:

My top 16 tips for beginning homeschoolers

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And why could not Japan, with all its hot springs and active volcanoes, make use of this on a large scale?

Five hot, rockin’ geothermal companies

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The sun sets on Japan's nuclear age

"Furious parents from Fukushima Prefecture this month dumped irradiated soil from school playgrounds on the desks of government bureaucrats. More protests are planned in the sweltering summer months, when looming power cuts and leaking radiation from the ruined Fukushima Daiichi power plant will make life very uncomfortable for citizens in this densely populated, sprawling metropolis."

Hope this is true; be great never to set mind on Monju again...

FUKUSHIMA UPDATE 5.22.11

Contamination: From Minamata to Fukushima

Since 11 March 2011, a different kind of toxin began making its way through the veins of common food sources after TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) completed a planned dumping of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean at the site of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.  Spinach and other green leafy vegetables, milk, and water have been found to have iodine-131.  Fish, cows’ milk, and water have been contaminated with cesium-137.

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Pensioners come forth for Fukushima

As the Japanese government and TEPCO struggle to bring the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant under control, a group of pensioners has decided to put their lives at risk to save younger people from radiation.

via reddit

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Fukushima Update: A Very Bad Situation

TEPCO has finally admitted that Reactor #1 has experienced a meltdown event that may have breached the primary containment vessel. Further, truly alarming levels of radiation are now being reported in and around Tokyo.

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Atmosphere Above Japan Heated Rapidly Before M9 Earthquake

Infrared emissions above the epicenter increased dramatically in the days before the devastating earthquake in Japan.

FUKUSHIMA UPDATE 5.18.11

Two months later, whereabouts of 9,500 still unknown

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A Fukushima Update

“The fact that reactor three used MOX fuel has prompted a Russian Chernobyl expert to even assert that ‘(the) release of plutonium will contaminate that area forever and…is impossible to clean up.”  [emphasis mine - RB] 

via reddit

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Japanese Officials Ignored or Concealed Dangers

[Surely officials of other nations would never do the same??]

   "Although the predictions sound eerily like the sequence of events at the Fukushima Daiichi plant following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, the lawsuit was filed nearly a decade ago to shut down another plant, long considered the most dangerous in Japan...

   The lawsuits reveal a disturbing pattern in which operators underestimated or hid seismic dangers to avoid costly upgrades and keep operating." 

--

Fukushima Reactor 1 melted down, 2 and 3 may have too

--

Jinzaburo Takagi

(In case you thought that this was all so unexpected:)
   In 1995 Jinzaburo Takagi (1938~1995), who received the Right Livelihood Award "...for serving to alert the world to the unparalleled dangers of plutonium to human life,”
“blasted the government and power companies for ‘refusing to consider emergency measures in the event of an earthquake because they assume nuclear power plants will not break down in an earthquake and have stopped taking further steps at all.’
   He also argued that the Great Hanshin Earthquake was a wakeup call for getting nuclear power facilities ready for emergencies, such as being ‘attacked by a tsunami along with a quake.’
   ‘Discussions on the safety of nuclear power plants or disaster preparedness measures on the assumption of those situations occurring have been shunned, on the grounds that it is inappropriate to make such assumptions or such discussions have some ulterior motive,’ he said.
   The paper [Nuclear Facilities and Emergencies - with Focus on Measures against Earthquakes, 1995] cited Fukushima Prefecture's Hamadori coastal region as one of the areas with a concentration of nuclear facilities that could face a situation ‘beyond what has been imagined’ if a major earthquake strikes. The region is home to the Fukushima No. 1 and No. 2 nuclear power plants run by Tokyo Electric Power Co.
   Tsunami-hit Fukushima No. 1 is also referred to in the paper as an ‘obsolete [in 1995! - RB] nuclear power plant that raises the greatest concerns’ and requires holding concrete discussions on its decommissioning.”
[emphasis mine - RB]

Stated by an expert almost 20 years ago!

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Reactor Vents That Failed in Japan Are Used in U.S.

--

I wonder if anyone else

thinks of this

profound infliction

from earth and sea

as partly a matter of

whale and dolphin

karma...

--

But there are new-old paths emerging...

(via Ken Elwood)

THERE ARE SO MANY TUESDAYS...  +

IT'S TWO MONTHS TOO LATE,

BUT TEPCO IS CONFIDENT IT CAN...

come up with a new plan by Tuesday!

Japan nuclear: Tepco halts Fukushima cooling plan

Japan's thin, white security blanket

Japan evacuates villages outside nuclear zone

One month earlier...[1:16 video clip in English]

Iitate Village Farmers Demand More Radiation Info

+

Nuclear collapse looms? 
Fukushima No. 4 reactor 'leaning'

 

NUCLEAR MELTDOWNS CAN BE HARD TO NOTICE...  + +

 Nuclear meltdown at Fukushima plant

"One of the reactors at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi power plant did suffer a nuclear meltdown, Japanese officials admitted for the first time today, describing a pool of molten fuel at the bottom of the reactor's containment vessel."

--

Fukushima village on way to becoming ghost town

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America's Worst Nukes
Poorly regulated nuclear power plants had 14 'near-misses' in 2010

+

Japan nuclear plant hit by more problems 
[video clip]

+

 Fukushima - One Step Forward and Four Steps Back 
as Each Unit Challenged by New Problems 
[video clip] 

via Reddit 

A GOOD MOVE--

Japan to Shut Nuclear Plant on Quake Fears;

Another Leaks Radiation

  +
Japan Earthquake: Two Months Later

via reddit

The Japanese government is about to begin releasing data projecting the spread of radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant that it initially withheld for fear of causing panic.

+

Fukushima parents dish the dirt in protest over radiation levels

Parents in Fukushima are angry over rule changes which mean that school children
can be exposed to 20 times more radiation than was previously permissible.

via reddit

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The lack of thought and care at the bottom of this is beyond words.
"Cold blooded" falls far short.
"Crimes against humanity" comes to mind...


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Physicians for Social Responsibility

 

 

 

What They're Covering Up at Fukushima

By HIROSE TAKASHI

" ...if you are so sure that they're safe, why not build them in the center of [Tokyo],
instead of hundreds of miles away where you lose half the electricity in the wires?"

+

Government Adviser Quits Post to Protest Japan's Policy

on Radiation Exposure for Fukushima Schools
+

Unsafe at Any Dose

"Nuclear accidents never cease. We’re decades if not generations
away from seeing the full effects of the radioactive emissions from Chernobyl."
+
she makes a VERY important point [emphasis mine]:

"Still, physicists talk convincingly about 'permissible doses' of radiation. They consistently ignore 
internal emitters — radioactive elements from nuclear power plants or weapons tests
that are ingested or inhaled into the body, giving very high doses to small volumes of cells.
They focus instead on generally less harmful external radiation from sources outside the body,
whether from isotopes emitted from nuclear power plants, medical X-rays,
cosmic radiation or background radiation that is naturally present in our environment." 

UPDATE Day 40

So K+Kids have gone back north, having been assured by Tepco, the government and others (excepting E and I) that it is safe as far as radiation goes, and the coming year of aftershocks as well. She does not like being there though, despite assurances, especially with the daily/nightly earth tremors. Turns out also, amidst all this truthy talk, that K and the girls were there for the "Chernobyl" days, during which clueless Tepco and the gagagovernment assured the public that everything was ok and would soon be under control, much as they're doing now... pay no attention to that dark cloud rising and drifting your way, nothing to see here; you people over there better evacuate, the rest of you can stay where you are...

More on this as it unfolds and discretion allows...

Japanese Government Faction Wants To Bankrupt TEPCO, Break It Up, And Take Away Its Executives Pay and give it to earthquake victims
Sounds like a good idea, but I bet they'll tax it somehow. Windfall perhaps. The execs likely won't know it's missing for years... "No problem. Everything's perfectly ok. According to my expert measurements I have at least 100,000 trillion yen in my account..."

Radioactivity rises in sea off Japan nuclear plant

New Photos of Damaged Reactors

Nuclear crisis could last 2 to 3 more months, expert says

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Kamaboko maker delivering free kamaboko to all the shelters... how grateful the people are, to have some homely food... how they enjoy the warm kamaboko, smiling their thanks as they eat... how happy he is to help, driving his truck among the mountains of debris to the next shelter...

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Meteorological Agency underestimated height of tsunami

Japan's food crisis goes beyond recent panic buying

"To Work at Fukushima, You Have to Be Ready to Die"

What does 'safe' mean in a nuclear disaster?

“There are indications that Fukushima has more than 20 times the amount of nuclear fuel than Chernobyl had. Does this mean that the potential threat from Fukushima could exceed that of Chernobyl?
Absolutely there is much more radioactive material in play here. There are some important differences. There was a huge fire at Chernobyl and it was hard to disperse the radioactivity, and there has not been that kind of fire so far at Fukushima. But there's an enormous amount of radioactive material there, which is not under control at this point and which could enter the environment and potentially travel large distances.”

TEPCO announces plan to end Japan nuclear crisis