Once again the would-be world savers Janette Sherman (MD) and Joseph Mangano (something) are pushing for another round of scaremongering dressed in a scientific coat. They have got their nonsense about increased US infant mortality due to Fukushima published in a peer-reviewed journal. This time they have extended their faulty study and extrapolated the effect for the entire US. Lo’ and behold, 14 000 deaths so far, they claim! The article, published in the International Journal on Health Services, can be found here. For a bit more easy reading, the press release here will probably do.
I refuse to accept any source that is called nuclearpoweryesplease dot com as credible. Far too biased. *note, I am not commenting on the contents of the story, but I am automatically dismissing a story based on criteria you have established in the past.
[This message has been edited by dennis_6 (edited 12-21-2011).]
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11:37 AM
phonedawgz Member
Posts: 17091 From: Green Bay, WI USA Registered: Dec 2009
Fukushima: Alarmist Claim? Obscure Medical Journal? Proceed With Caution
The press release trumpeted a startling claim: researchers had linked radioactive fallout from the Fukushima nuclear disaster to 14,000 infant deaths in the United States.
"This is the first peer-reviewed study published in a medical journal documenting the health hazards of Fukushima," the press release bragged in announcing the study's publication today. The press release, which comparing the disaster's impact to Chernobyl, appeared via PR Newswire on mainstream news sites, including the Sacramento Bee and Yahoo! News.
Casual readers who didn't realize this was only a press release could be forgiven for thinking this was a spit-out-your-coffee story. But with a little online research and guidance from veteran health journalists Ivan Oransky and Gary Schwitzer, I quickly learned that there's a lot less to this study and to the medical journal that published it. Read on for their advice on what journalists can learn from this episode.
Normally, reporters are supposed to feel better about research that's been peer-reviewed before publication in a scientific journal. But the claims of the press release were just so outlandish, warning bells went off.
As it turns out, the authors, Joseph Mangano and Janette Sherman, published a version of this study in the political newsletter Counterpunch, where it was quickly criticized. The critics charged that the authors had cherry-picked federal data on infant deaths so they would spike around the time of the Fukushima disaster. Passions over nuclear safety further muddied the debate: both researchers and critics had activist baggage, with the researchers characterized as anti-nuke and the critics as pro-nuke.
As Scientific American's Michael Moyer writes: "The authors appeared to start from a conclusion—babies are dying because of Fukushima radiation—and work backwards, torturing the data to fit their claims"
So how did such a seemingly flawed study wind up in a peer-reviewed journal?
I researched the journal, the International Journal of Health Services, and its editor, Vicente Navarro. Navarro, a professor at Johns Hopkins University's prestigious school of public health, looked legit, but the journal's "impact factor" (a measure of a research journal's credibility and influence) was less impressive. (I emailed and called Navarro for comment; I'll update this post if I hear back from him.)
I asked Ivan Oransky, executive editor of Reuters Health and co-founder of the Retraction Watch blog, and Health News Review founder Gary Schwitzer: how can journalists better evaluate when to cover (and more importantly, when not to cover) the medical research stories that cross their desks?
Their consensus: just because a study's peer-reviewed doesn't mean it's credible. And evaluating a journal's impact factor can be helpful, but it's not sufficient.
Here's what Oransky had to say:
I do use impact factor to judge journals, while accepting that it's an imperfect measure that is used in all sorts of inappropriate ways (and, for the sake of full disclosure, is a Thomson Scientific product, as in Thomson Reuters). I find it helpful to rank journals within a particular specialty. It's not the only metric I use to figure out what to cover, but if I'm looking at a field with dozens or even more than 100 journals, it's a good first-pass filter. There's competition to publish in journals, which means high-impact journals have much lower acceptance rates. And if citations are any measure at all of whether journals are read, then they're obviously read more, too.
I looked up the journal in question, and it's actually ranked 45th out of 58 in the Health Policy and Services category (in the social sciences rankings) and 59th out of 72 in the Health Care Sciences & Services category (in the science rankings).
As to how this could get published in a peer-reviewed journal, well, not all peer review is created equal. Higher-ranked journals tend to have more thorough peer review. (They also, perhaps not surprisingly, have higher rates of retractions. Whether that's because people push the envelope to publish in them, or there are more eyeballs on them, or there's some other reason, is unclear. But there's no evidence that it's because their peer review is less thorough.)
Finally, I'd refer readers to this great primer on peer review by Maggie Koerth-Baker.
Gary Schwitzer also provided these helpful tips for journalists:
1. Brush up on the writings of John Ioannidis, who has written a great deal in recent years about the flaws in published research.
2. Journalists who live on a steady diet of journal articles almost by definition promote a rose-colored view of progress in research if they don't grasp and convey the publication bias in many journals for positive findings. Negative or null findings may not be viewed as sexy enough. Or they may be squelched prior to submission. While perhaps not a factor in this one case, it nonetheless drives home the point to journalists about the need to critically evaluate studies.
3. In this case, a journalist would be well-served by a friendly local biostatistician's review.
4. It is always more helpful to focus on the quality of the study rather than the impact factor of the journal or the reputation of the researcher (for reasons Ivan articulated). However, these are legitimate questions to ask any published researcher: "Why did you choose to submit your work to that journal? Did you submit it elsewhere and was it rejected? If so, what feedback did you get from the peer reviewers?"
Thank you, for establishing that your much vaunted scientific journals are not infallible, and that was the point of this. Now that we both agree that scientific journals are not to always be trusted, you can back off the articles from main stream media, that disagree with you. They are after all as trustworthy as peer reviewed scientific journals.
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04:56 PM
phonedawgz Member
Posts: 17091 From: Green Bay, WI USA Registered: Dec 2009
If you look for the actual facts of what is happening instead of trying to debate you would be way ahead.
Your "actual facts" and others are likely different. I don't decide what the facts are for others, I just post what I find on the subject, it is up to the reader to decide fact from fiction. You seem to not be able to comprehend that, or if you do, you can't stand any information that does not support your opinion.
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02:53 PM
dennis_6 Member
Posts: 7196 From: between here and there Registered: Aug 2001
CMAJ: Public health fallout from Japanese quake, Canadian Medical Association Journal, Dec. 21, 2011:
A “culture of coverup” and inadequate cleanup efforts have combined to leave Japanese people exposed to “unconscionable” health risks nine months after last year’s meltdown of nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant, health experts say.
Tilman Ruff, Associate Professor in the Nossal Institute for Global Health, University of Melbourne; Chair of the Medical Association for Prevention of Nuclear War
* This “arbitrary increase” in the maximum permissible dose of radiation is an “unconscionable” failure of government * “Subject a class of 30 children to 20 millisieverts of radiation for five years and you’re talking an increased risk of cancer to the order of about 1 in 30, which is completely unacceptable” * “I’m not aware of any other government in recent decades that’s been willing to accept such a high level of radiation-related risk for its population” * Following the 1986 nuclear disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Ukraine, “clear targets were set so that anybody anticipated to receive more than five millisieverts in a year were evacuated, no question” * In areas with levels between one and five millisieverts, measures were taken to mitigate the risk of ingesting radioactive materials, including bans on local food consumption, and residents were offered the option of relocating * Exposures below one millisievert were still considered worth monitoring * In comparison, the Japanese government has implemented a campaign to encourage the public to buy produce from the Fukushima area * “That response 25 years ago in that much less technically sophisticated, much less open or democratic context, was, from a public health point of view, much more responsible than what’s being done in modern Japan this year” * Ruff similarly charges that the government has mismanaged the file and provided the public with misinformation * Ruff argues the government must examine the provision of compensation for voluntary evacuation from areas outside of the exclusion zone where there are high levels of radioactive contamination * Without such compensation, many families have no option but to stay * “At this point, the single most important public health measure to minimize the health harm over the longterm is much wider evacuation.”
Nuke Expert/MD: Japan gov’t was lying through its teeth about Fukushima… and probably still is
CMAJ: Public health fallout from Japanese quake, Canadian Medical Association Journal, Dec. 21, 2011:
Ira Hefland, MD, Expert on nuclear power nuclear waste and radiation exposure; Member of the board of directors for Physicians for Social Responsibility
* “We still don’t know exactly what radiation doses people were exposed to (in the immediate aftermath of the disaster)” * “Or what ongoing doses people are being exposed to” * “Most of the information we’re getting at this point is a series of contradictory statements” * “Gov’t assures the people that everything’s okay” * “Private citizens doing their own radiation monitoring come up with higher readings than the government says they should be finding” * Japanese gov’t is essentially contending that the higher dose is “not dangerous” * “However, since the accident, it’s become clear the Japanese government was lying through its teeth, doing everything it possible [sic] could to minimize public concern, even when that meant denying the public information needed to make informed decisions, and probably still is” * “It’s now clear they knew within a day or so there had been a meltdown at the plant, yet they didn’t disclose that for weeks, and only with great prodding from the outside” * “And at the same moment he was assuring people there was no public health disaster, the Prime Minister now concedes that he thought Tokyo would have to be evacuated but was doing nothing to bring that about”
Japan: Nuclear plant clean up to take decades Japan says it could take 40 years to clean up the leaking nuclear plant, but is that going to make people feel safe? D. Parvaz Last Modified: 21 Dec 2011 22:49
Nine months after the worst earthquake and tsunami to ever hit Japan, the rubble is still being cleared, but the issue of nuclear contamination will take decades to deal with.
Japan's government on Wednesday announced that decommissioning the damaged and leaking Fukushima Daiichi plant will take three or four decades - that is just for the plant alone and not the surrounding areas, composed mostly of farmland.
"The period of time it would take to decommission the plant should not have a direct bearing on when the evacuees will be allowed to return home," Trade Minister Yukio Edano told reporters.
The Daiichi plant in Fukushima, operated by the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), was badly damaged by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
With its cooling system destroyed, the plant has been leaking radioactive substances into the sea as well as the soil and air. Experts have said that the contamination from Fukushima is worse than Chernobyl.
Experts say that the total radiation leaked will eventually exceed the amounts released from the Chernobyl disaster
The government last week announced that reactors are in a state of cold shutdown, indicating that it was preparing to eventually decommission the plant.
According to the cleanup plan announced on Wednesday, crews will begin removing spent fuel from the plant before 2014. The timeline for removing melted fuel debris from the reactors is a decade, with a full decommissioning taking as long as 40 years.
While four decades seems like a long time, some think that estimate is unrealistically short, given the scale of the nuclear disaster at the plant.
"The forty year time frame seems very challenging," said said MV Ramana, a researcher at Princeton University specialising in the nuclear industry and climate change.
While he said that there have been cases in the US where nuclear reactors have been decommissioned within that time frame, Ramana added that none of those reactors went through an accident on the scale of Fukushima - ranked level 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale with fuel meltdown and contamination of the surrounding area.
The 40-year timeline is more in step with "normal reactors reaching the end of their economic life", said Ramana.
"These would not have a mass of melted down radioactive fuel on their floors. Fukushima does not fit that description and so it could be very tough to do it in 40 years."
Indeed, for those living with the reality of the meltdown in Japan, the Daiichi disaster seems endless.
"It looks too optimistic for many people. But nobody knows," said Katsuyoshi Ueno, a photographer in Tokyo.
"For the majority it is just out of imagination. Who knows about 2041 or 2051? A lot of people question 'Will I be alive when it's completed?'"
Lives in limbo
About 80,000 people were evacuated from within a 20 km radius of the plant soon after the March disaster but some of them may be allowed to return as early as next spring now that the cold shutdown has been declared.
Many of these residents were evacuated first to emergency shelters, such as school gymnasiums, and then moved to temporary, prefabricated housing, where they must pay for utilities and food - a hardship for many as they have lost their jobs and are still paying mortgages on their empty homes.
Ueno told Al Jazeera that many of the evacuees from contaminated areas don't feel safe to return, but financial concerns are forcing some to move back.
He said there's little sympathy for evacuees in the capital.
"...[I]n Tokyo [people] think without reason that it would be the best for evacuees to move back, because it is too obvious that nobody wants to abandon his/her home," said Ueno, adding that there's also a sense of denial, and people "remain adamant as if nothing is wrong". Read our complete coverage of the March 11, 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown
For the evacuees, staying put in temporary housing has been tough as compensation has been slow. Al Jazeera reported in September, six months after disaster struck, that some evacuees had received just $13,000 in compensation from TEPCO - a pittance in Japan, where the cost of living is among the highest in the world.
Some of the most contaminated areas, such as Iitate, within Fukushima prefecture, are being hosed down, their soil and sod packed into bags. Officials told Japanese media that farms there will be decontaminated within five years.
Telling evacuees to wait that long is problematic as they have to make a living in the meantime, and compelling them to return to contaminated areas is equally fraught.
The Los Angeles Times reported earlier this month that there is already pressure for the residents of Minamisoma - roughly 25 km north of the leaking nuclear plant - to return. The push from the town's outspoken mayor, Katsunobu Sakurai, has caused a furor.
Adding fuel to the fire are claims that government safety precautions - including the radius of evacuation zones - are random and ineffective.
"It's almost like they're living inside a nuclear plant," said journalist Tomohiko Suzuki, referring to those living just outside places such as Iitate village. Suzuki went undercover at the Daiichi plant and presented his findings at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan on December 15.
Deep mistrust
Doubts also linger about whether the cold shutdown announcement was too hasty, and whether the reactors and their contamination have really been contained.
"The Japanese government admits that they do not have enough technology for the plan," said Kazuo Hizumi, a human rights lawyer and an editor at News for the People in Japan, a news site advocating for transparency from the government and from TEPCO.
He told Al Jazeera that people are bewildered at the 40-year forecast and have repeatedly called for the arrest of TEPCO executives.
"I am worried we cannot get enough information from the government and TEPCO, because they stopped the regular press conference held when the government declared cold shutdown ... was achieved."
Even though Edano has said that TEPCO would "naturally shoulder the cost" of the cleanup and compensation, both the government and the energy company are on the hook.
The compensation payments and cleanup costs saddling TEPCO could endanger its position as an independent firm as the stricken utility may need huge injections of public cash. The government plans to take a stake of more than two-thirds in TEPCO in a de facto nationalisation of the utility, the Yomiuri newspaper said on Wednesday.
An official advisory panel has estimated it may cost about $15bn to decommission the plant, though some experts put it at nearly three times that amount.
The Environment Ministry says about 2,400 square km of land around the plant may need to be decontaminated and the cost is sure to be enormous.
Tepco Plans to Dismantle Fukushima Reactors Within 40 Years
Dec. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Tokyo Electric Power Co. plans to decommission the damaged reactors at the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant in 30 to 40 years, the Japanese government said, outlining a “roadmap” for dismantling the station.
The company known as Tepco will start removing the spent fuel rods at Fukushima Dai-Ichi within two years, according to the schedule released today in Tokyo. Engineers will attempt to start removing melted fuel from one of the reactors within a decade, the government said.
Three reactors went into meltdown after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami damaged the station, causing the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl in 1986. Decommissioning the station may cost at least 1.15 trillion yen ($14.8 billion), according to a government estimate in October.
Dismantling the reactors will probably be more complex than Chernobyl because it involves more nuclear fuel, said Najmedin Meshkati, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Southern California, who worked as a consultant on decommissioning the Ukraine station.
“It is difficult to get an accurate estimate now because we really don't have a very good understanding of the level of devastation, the amount of the meltdown and the material that needs to be removed and the exact radiation level,” he said.
Tepco and the government may have to revise the timetable after robots are used to gather more details about the extent of the damage deep inside the reactors, Meshkati said.
Fuel Extraction
To get to the spent fuel rods engineers must negotiate blown out walls and the twisted remains of steel infrastructure, after explosions tore reactor buildings apart in the early days of the crisis.
There are more than 2,700 spent fuel assemblies in four buildings, according to the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum. More than 1,300 are located in the No. 4 unit, which didn't melt down because the fuel had been removed from the reactor for maintenance before the quake and tsunami struck.
Once the spent rods are removed, Tepco will start working on extracting the melted cores, which dropped to the bottom of the reactor vessels then burnt through inner steel casings into concrete foundations. The fuel didn't breach a second steel containment barrier.
Reactor No. 1 had 400 fuel assemblies and reactors 2 and 3 had 548 each, according to the atomic forum.
Each assembly contains 60 uranium rods about 4.35 meters (14 feet) in length adding up to about 270 metric tons of fuel to be removed, said Tony Irwin, a former reactor manager for British Energy Group Plc who lectures on nuclear technology at the Australian National University.
Striking a Balance
Tepco is probably waiting for radiation levels to fall before attempting to extract the melted fuel, Irwin said.
“It's a balance between the dose they're going to get to workers doing this job and the need to remove the fuel from the reactor,” he said.
The government on Dec. 16 announced Tepco had brought the station into a state known as cold shutdown, meeting its target to stabilize the reactors by the end of the year and allowing it to move to the next phase of resolving the crisis.
Radiation fallout caused 160,000 people to flee areas around the Fukushima station, which is located about 220 kilometers (137 miles) north of Tokyo and has six reactors.
The cost of the cleanup and compensating residents and businesses affected by the catastrophe may bankrupt Tepco, which has asked the government for support and received emergency loans from its creditors.
Shares Fall
Tepco shares fell to the lowest in two months today after the Yomiuri newspaper said the utility may be nationalized to avert collapse. The government may invest 1 trillion yen to acquire stock while banks may be asked to lend the same amount, the newspaper reported. Tepco shares fell 9.8 percent.
“We are considering all options,” Trade and Industry Minister Yukio Edano said today in Tokyo when asked about the Yomiuri report. He was speaking at a press conference to outline the decommissioning schedule.
Edano said the roadmap didn't include decommissioning costs because “it's difficult to make a firm estimate at the moment.”
The cost of the cleanup won't be an impediment to carrying out the project, Goshi Hosono, the minister in charge of the response to the disaster, said today at the same briefing.
“There won't be any delays in the decomissioning process due to the cost,” he said. “I ordered Tepco not to allow that to happen.”
The government will be sensitive to the aspirations of those displaced by the disaster, Edano said.
Govt likely to take over TEPCO / Liability fund would hold stock majority
The Yomiuri Shimbun
The government will likely bring Tokyo Electric Power Co. under state control as part of a 2 trillion yen plan that involves using the Nuclear Damage Liability Facilitation Fund to obtain more than two-thirds of the utility's stock, according to an informed source.
The state-backed compensation funding body will provide 1 trillion yen and the government will ask TEPCO's main private banks to finance another 1 trillion yen.
TEPCO has begun studying the proposal and has responded positively so far, the same source said.
The utility has been struggling with massive compensation payments to people and businesses affected by the crisis at its Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. There are also sizable costs for the eventual decommissioning of the crippled plant.
This financial assistance plan will enable TEPCO to keep its liabilities from exceeding assets, and allow it to progress with vigorous corporate restructuring.
According to the source, the fund started presenting the assistance plan to TEPCO's main banks on Tuesday. The government hopes to begin full-fledged negotiations with the banks early next year, and to finalize the assistance plan by March.
The fund is expected to acquire classified stock from TEPCO, which differs from common stock owned by current shareholders.
These classified stock will be different in terms of voting power and dividend payments, making it easier for the fund to sell it after they have been acquired.
The fund will acquire more than two-thirds of the voting rights through the purchase of shares after TEPCO expands its stock issuance at a general shareholders meeting in June next year. This will enable the fund to make important corporate decisions.
TEPCO's management is expected to resign when the government provides this financial assistance.
The Nuclear Damage Liability Facilitation Fund is a public institution with half of its capital financed by the government. It was created to help the government provide financial support to TEPCO, which is used to compensate victims of the nuclear crisis. The government will effectively place TEPCO under state control by acquiring the utility's management rights.
The fund will promote the selling-off of the utility's thermal power stations, buying cheaper electricity from other companies and accelerating efforts to cut personnel costs, in order to create a system that makes steady compensation payments.
The fund's financial contribution will be made on the assumption that TEPCO increases its electricity rates by up to 10 percent in October next year and resumes operations of suspended nuclear power plants from fiscal 2013.
The fund will ask for financial assistance from TEPCO's main banks, which will be equal to the value of that provided by the government. But the fund may face a tough round of negotiations regarding financial assistance to be offered by the banks as they already have outstanding loans of 4 trillion yen.
It was previously decided that TEPCO will receive about 1 trillion yen public financial assistance for compensation payments, with the fund providing about 890 billion yen and the central government 120 billion yen. But this money cannot be used for any purposes other than compensation.
Through the proposed financing from the fund and banks, TEPCO is expected to be able to buy fuel for operating its thermal power stations, and secure funds for decommissioning the crippled plants.
TEPCO is projected to post a non-consolidated net loss of 576.3 billion yen for the business term ending in March next year. But without financing from the fund and banks, the utility's liabilities are expected to exceed its assets for the business term ending in March 2013. (Dec. 22, 2011) http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy...al/T111221006388.htm
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03:19 PM
phonedawgz Member
Posts: 17091 From: Green Bay, WI USA Registered: Dec 2009
No, I just point out when you post totally wacko stuff.
There are way too many wackos that will willfully distort what his happening. There there are the next level of wackos that will take some partial information and try to extrapolate it into something that the original facts do not support. Then there is the army of wackos who forward all the wacked out information to everyone they can.
The final result is people hear total bull **** information like "Japan is going to start pouring concrete on Fukushima" or "Fukushima killed 14,000 Americans" and they end up not knowing what to believe.
If you wanted to do any good, what you would really do is filter out the misleading crap before you published it. That or start using reliable sources.
Anyways don't blame me for pointing out that your posts are crap after you publish them.
And again what is the bottom line? People have learned not to believe anything that you dredge and spam onto here
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05:06 PM
PFF
System Bot
dennis_6 Member
Posts: 7196 From: between here and there Registered: Aug 2001
No, I just point out when you post totally wacko stuff.
There are way too many wackos that will willfully distort what his happening. There there are the next level of wackos that will take some partial information and try to extrapolate it into something that the original facts do not support. Then there is the army of wackos who forward all the wacked out information to everyone they can.
The final result is people hear total bull **** information like "Japan is going to start pouring concrete on Fukushima" or "Fukushima killed 14,000 Americans" and they end up not knowing what to believe.
If you wanted to do any good, what you would really do is filter out the misleading crap before you published it. That or start using reliable sources.
Anyways don't blame me for pointing out that your posts are crap after you publish them.
And again what is the bottom line? People have learned not to believe anything that you dredge and spam onto here
I didn't post the thread about the reactors having concrete poured on them. Fail number one for you. The mainstream media was reporting that they were going to though. So fail number 2 for you. Fail number 3 for you is anyone who has followed this thread, knows that you only believe the opposite extreme. That everything in Fukushima is completely under control and life will soon be back to normal, with no lasting ill effects. Thats about as likely to be the case as 14,000 dead in the US from fallout. It seems you still don't understand why I posted that journal entry.
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05:14 PM
phonedawgz Member
Posts: 17091 From: Green Bay, WI USA Registered: Dec 2009
The reason you post every piece of trash you dredge from the internet is because you are a fear monger, and you hope people might believe your trash.
Again you are quite loose with the facts. Or perhaps you are just a liar.
Where did I ever say "everything in Fukushima is completely under control and life will soon be back to normal, with no lasting ill effects."?
Do you want to go with "mistaken" or do you want to go with "liar"?
Didn't say you said it, now who is the liar? You downplay the disaster at every possible chance and have been since the beginning pages of this thread. I have nothing to gain by being a "fear monger", other than a larger neg bar. There isn't a motive for me to mislead. The question is why do you deliberately and without fail attempt to play PR damage control for the nuclear industry? I wouldn't be surprised if you have an investment that depends the nuclear industry.
[This message has been edited by dennis_6 (edited 12-22-2011).]
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07:01 PM
dennis_6 Member
Posts: 7196 From: between here and there Registered: Aug 2001
Google turns up the following articles when Fukushima is searched, they are not exactly positive. So tell me again how I am cherry picking a few bad stories in a sea of positive ones? The truth is you lie again, and you are searching hard through industry sites to find anything remotely positive.
1. Japanese mothers rise up against nuclear power You +1'd this publicly. Undo The Guardian - 12 hours ago Japanese authorities announced last week that the devastated Fukushima Daiichi complex has been brought down to a state of cold shutdown. ... Japan Plots 40-Year Effort to Decommission Nuclear Plant Wall Street Journal Fukushima gov. calls for compensation for all affected residents Mainichi Daily News Japan Says Decommissioning Damaged Reactors Could Take 40 Years New York Times Hindustan Times - CNN all 765 news articles » The Guardian 2. Could New Nuclear Reactor Have Prevented Fukushima? You +1'd this publicly. Undo ABC News (blog) - 2 hours ago “Everyone has heard of what happened at the Fukushima Daiichi plant,” said ... The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant suffered major damage in the 9.0 ... In-Depth: Reactor design approved for Georgia Power's nuclear expansion project Atlanta Journal Constitution NRC Approves Toshiba Reactor Design Wall Street Journal NRC Clears Way for Nuclear Plant Construction New York Times MarketWatch (press release) - EnergyBoom all 338 news articles » Bloomberg 3. Japan declares Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant stable, in 'cold ... You +1'd this publicly. Undo Washington Post - 5 days ago TOKYO — The Japanese government on Friday declared that the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant had reached a stable state known as “cold shutdown,” a benchmark ... In-Depth: Fukushima Cold Shutdown: An Inside Look Wall Street Journal Japan's Prime Minister Declares Fukushima Plant Stable New York Times Japan: crucial stage reached in nuclear plant shutdown [Updated] Los Angeles Times all 1067 news articles » Wall Street Journal 4. Japan mulls $13 billion Fukushima bailout You +1'd this publicly. Undo Reuters - Dec 8, 2011 Workers wearing protective suits conduct training to secure electricity with power source car in the nighttime at the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi ... Video: Strontium Tainted Water "no problem" Fukushima update 12/4/11 YouTube YouTube Opinion: Clearing the air at Fukushima The Boston Globe After Fukushima, the nuclear industry wonders what's next Economic Times Financial Times - Los Angeles Times all 814 news articles » Los Angeles Times 5. Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant operator 'ignored tsunami ... You +1'd this publicly. Undo The Guardian - Nov 29, 2011 The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant ignored warnings that the complex was at risk of damage from a tsunami of the size that hit ... Opinion: After Fukushima: Now, More Than Ever New York Times Blog: Director of Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant stepping down ... National Post (blog) Fukushima: worse than previously thought? GlobalPost Wall Street Journal (India) - Reuters India all 759 news articles » The Guardian 6. Fukushima Daiichi Post-Shutdown: Ready for the Robots You +1'd this publicly. Undo Wall Street Journal (blog) - 6 days ago By Mitsuru Obe The Quince, a radio-controlled robot, that was sent into the Fukushima Daiichi No. 2 reactor in June. The Quince robot photographs the inside ... 7. Retired scientists still want to help at Japan nuclear plant You +1'd this publicly. Undo Los Angeles Times - Dec 8, 2011 REPORTING FROM TOKYO -- Retired scientist Nobuhiro Shiotani is stubborn: He still hasn't given up on his idea of helping the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant ... Blog: Ex-Chief of Japan Nuclear Plant Has Cancer Voice of America (blog) Fukushima nuclear plant considers dumping treated water into ocean Vancouver Sun TEPCO Secures Insurer for Fukushima Daiichi Facility PropertyCasualty360 Nuclear Street - Nuclear Power Portal (blog) - Mainichi Daily News all 190 news articles » Mainichi Daily News 8. Top 100 Stories of 2011: #7: Japan Quakes; Nuke Power Stays Steady ... You +1'd this publicly. Undo Bayoubuzz - 6 hours ago Last March, after the Sendai earthquake and tsunami crippled the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan, the aftershocks of the disaster seemed to put the ...
BusinessWeek 9. Wild monkeys to help test Fukushima radiation levels You +1'd this publicly. Undo msnbc.com - Dec 15, 2011 This half-meter resolution satellite image was taken of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant three days after a 9.0-magnitude earthquake struck the ... Highly Cited: Japanese scientists to use wild monkeys to track radiation CNN Blog: Wild Monkeys To Monitor Radiation Levels In Japan Discover Magazine (blog) Wild monkeys and boars enlisted to help measure Fukushima ... Boing Boing Earthweek - A Diary of the Planet - International Business Times AU all 21 news articles » msnbc.com 10. Japan less likely to trust officials, main media, since disaster You +1'd this publicly. Undo The Daily Titan - 2 days ago On March 11, after an earthquake-driven tsunami damaged the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the world waited anxiously to see how its fragile ... 11. News archive results for fukushima daiichi Dec 13, 2007 Update 1-Japan, neighbours anxiously watch wind as nuclear crisis ...
Scientific American - all 70 news articles » Mar 16, 2011 Heroes of Fukushima - 50 remain at Daiichi - World - Nz Herald News
New Zealand Herald - all 1900 news articles » Mar 17, 2011 Why Fukushima Daiichi won't be another Chernobyl - physics-math ...
Didn't say you said it, now who is the liar? You downplay the disaster at every possible chance and have been since the beginning pages of this thread. I have nothing to gain by being a "fear monger", other than a larger neg bar. There isn't a motive for me to mislead. The question is why do you deliberately and without fail attempt to play PR damage control for the nuclear industry? I wouldn't be surprised if you have an investment that depends the nuclear industry.
quote
Originally posted by dennis_6:
Fail number 3 for you is anyone who has followed this thread, knows that you only believe the opposite extreme. That everything in Fukushima is completely under control and life will soon be back to normal, with no lasting ill effects.
Well there you go. I don't believe it and I didn't say it.
That makes you a liar.
[This message has been edited by phonedawgz (edited 12-22-2011).]
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07:52 PM
phonedawgz Member
Posts: 17091 From: Green Bay, WI USA Registered: Dec 2009
Google turns up the following articles when Fukushima is searched, they are not exactly positive. So tell me again how I am cherry picking a few bad stories in a sea of positive ones? The truth is you lie again, and you are searching hard through industry sites to find anything remotely positive.
**** you don't get it. It is not about posting positive or negative posts This is not about a debate!
It is about posting crap that that is full of made up 'facts' that you dredged out of some fear mongering blog.
That is what makes you a fear monger.
That is what makes you a liar.
It is not about posting positive or negative posts
[This message has been edited by phonedawgz (edited 12-22-2011).]
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08:02 PM
dennis_6 Member
Posts: 7196 From: between here and there Registered: Aug 2001
**** you don't get it. It is not about posting positive or negative posts This is not about a debate!
It is about posting crap that that is full of made up 'facts' that you dredged out of some fear mongering blog.
That is what makes you a fear monger.
That is what makes you a liar.
It is not about posting positive or negative posts
So the New York Times, or the Japan Times, or any other newspaper source I use, such as the WSJ are fear mongering blogs? You fail again. I do post from a few blogs time to time, but in no way are they the majority of my sources. The blogs I post from always have the articles sourced, the stories do not come from thin air.
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08:53 PM
phonedawgz Member
Posts: 17091 From: Green Bay, WI USA Registered: Dec 2009
A US nuclear expert says it is impossible to predict the time needed to decommission the crippled reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
Charles Casto told NHK on Wednesday that the true situation inside the reactors remains unknown. Casto represents a team from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission dispatched to Japan since the nuclear accident in March.
Casto said that after the accident his team advised the Japanese government to continue injecting sea water into the reactors, as well as fresh water, to cool down spent nuclear fuel.
He also said Japanese authorities failed to provide appropriate information to the US government soon after the accident.
Casto said his team felt deep dissatisfaction with Japan for providing only limited information from a small number of engineers.
Last Friday, Japan declared the Fukushima reactors had reached a state of cold shutdown -- the second phase in the program to bring the facility under control.
Nuke panel set to skewer regulators, science ministry for hiding SPEEDI fallout data Evacuation order to face criticism Kyodo
A government panel investigating the Fukushima nuclear crisis is expected to state in an upcoming report that the evacuation order issued shortly after the accident began was irrational, sources said.
The government ordered people living within 20 km of the plant to evacuate, but the panel believes the order led some residents to move to areas where radiation was actually higher and generated mass confusion, the sources said.
The prime minister's office received its first fallout estimate on March 23 — or 11 days after the first hydrogen explosion occurred at the Fukushima complex. The estimate was based on data from the government's special computerized System for Prediction of Environmental Emergency Dose Information (SPEEDI).
The nuclear safety agency and the science ministry had SPEEDI data that could have prevented some of the unnecessary radiation exposure, but decided to sit on it instead of reporting it to the crisis management center at the prime minister's office, the sources said.
Their thinking, according to the sources, was that the data were "merely a hypothetical calculation result."
As a result, people who fled the coast of Fukushima Prefecture and went northwest ended up in places where the danger was higher because spring winds at the time were blowing in that direction, carrying toxic fallout to areas well beyond the 20-km radius evacuation zone, they said.
That situation occurred because the government issued the evacuation order based only on distance, the sources said.
They said data from a costly high-tech system designed to predict the dispersal of radioactive materials could have served as a reference for evacuation because, although the amount of radiation was not accurately predicted, it provided a clear picture of areas with relatively higher or lower radiation levels.
The panel, led by Yotaro Hatamura, a professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo who studies industrial accidents, is expected to release its interim report on the accident Monday. Stricter food rules
A task force under the health ministry's food sanitation council approved a proposal Thursday to reduce the top limit on radioactive cesium in food to 100 becquerels per kilogram for rice, meat, vegetables and fish, one-fifth of the provisional 500-becquerel limit set after the Fukushima disaster began.
The ministry plans to enforce the new limits in April. The government said Dec. 17 it had achieved a cold shutdown of the crippled reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant and that they were no longer emitting high amounts of radiation.
The proposal calls for setting a limit of 50 becquerels of cesium per kilogram of milk and food for infants, including powdered milk, and a 10-becquerel limit on drinking water, compared with the 200-becquerel limit set by the government following the core meltdowns in Fukushima in March.
But "grace periods" of between six and nine months will be set for such items such as rice and beef.
The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry will refer the proposal to the science ministry's radiation council and hold briefing sessions in seven prefectures, including Fukushima, Tokyo and Osaka, starting in January and seek public comment. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20111223x2.html
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12:46 AM
dennis_6 Member
Posts: 7196 From: between here and there Registered: Aug 2001
Gov't starring in own show to bring Fukushima nuclear crisis 'under control' After determining that the damaged Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant had achieved "cold shutdown conditions," the government announced earlier this month that the nuclear crisis had been brought under control.
"Cold shutdown conditions," however, is a vague phrase, and the government has rewritten the "completed" road map for bringing the crisis under control seven times. It is apparent the government is trying to close the curtain on a performance it has written and acted out to stress to international society that it has brought the crisis under control quickly.
Nine months have now passed since the onset of the disaster. At this time it is worthwhile to look back on crisis management following the outbreak.
At the end of May, an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) delegation speaking to officials of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry noted that the No. 1 plant was in a serious state. The delegation added that while the No. 2 plant had been in a similarly serious state after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, it had "miraculously" been cooled, offering praise for the handling of the crisis.
In the wake of the tsunami, which also partially knocked out power at the Fukushima No. 2 nuclear plant, workers urgently gathered makeshift cables from the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant in Niigata Prefecture and other locations to cool No. 2 plant's four reactors. A large number of workers were brought in and they worked through the night taking down a baseball field fence on the compound to create a heliport, and the headlights of 20 workers' cars were used to guide helicopters carrying the cables. A total of nine kilometers of cable were laid over two days, and workers just managed to cool the plant. Normally such work would have taken 20 days.
The reason the plant was able to employ such human wave tactics was that the March 11 earthquake occurred on a Friday afternoon, and there happened to be several thousand workers from cooperating companies on the premises.
Naohiro Masuda, head of the Fukushima No. 2 nuclear plant, commented, "I shudder to think how it would have been if it had happened on a Saturday."
While all this was going on, power loss at the No. 1 to 4 reactors of the No. 1 nuclear plant prevented officials from cooling nuclear fuel, and the pool holding 1,535 rods of spent nuclear fuel in the No. 4 reactor building started boiling. If the spent rods had melted down, in a worst-case scenario as many as 30 million people in the Tokyo metropolitan area would have had to be evacuated. However, just before the pool went dry, there was a hydrogen explosion in the reactor building that sent water from a neighboring pool into the one holding the spent fuel, and this scenario was averted In this March 20, 2011 aerial file photo taken by a small unmanned drone and released by Air Photo Service, the crippled Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant is seen in Okumamachi, Fukushima prefecture. From top to bottom: Unit 1, Unit 2, Unit 3 and Unit 4. (AP Photo/Air Photo Service) In this March 20, 2011 aerial file photo taken by a small unmanned drone and released by Air Photo Service, the crippled Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant is seen in Okumamachi, Fukushima prefecture. From top to bottom: Unit 1, Unit 2, Unit 3 and Unit 4. (AP Photo/Air Photo Service)
Hydrogen had also been building up in the No. 2 reactor building but an explosion in the neighboring No. 1 reactor building forced open a window in the No. 2 building, releasing the trapped hydrogen and averting another hydrogen explosion. If the pool of the No. 4 reactor building had continued to heat up without water and an explosion had also occurred in the No. 2 reactor, radioactive contamination would be incomparably higher than current levels.
When I interviewed an official from the nuclear plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), the official told me, "Bringing the situation under control was possible because this happened in Japan; overseas it would have been impossible."
Naturally, I have the utmost respect for the workers who have tirelessly set about dealing with the situation under the threat of radiation exposure. But let us not forget that a series of coincidences also played a part in Japan's response to the accident.
Another point to consider is that when creating the road map to bring the nuclear crisis under control, the government and TEPCO put off facing root problems and instead focused on bringing the disaster "under control."
The road map for settling the crisis consisted of two steps. Step 1, which was to be carried out between April and July, focused on stably cooling the reactors, while step 2, covering the period between July and January 2012, aimed at achieving "cold shutdown conditions." The government looked to speed up work to have step 2 completed by the end of this year.
One of the goals that TEPCO initially announced for step 2 was filling the reactor containment vessels with water. However, the utility abandoned this plan after it emerged that there were holes in the containment vessels. Eventually, officials decided to delay such measures for five years or more. The company also established a goal under step 2 of "dealing with and reducing the amount of radioactive water" on the site, but when the road map was rewritten, it was decided that there would "ongoing treatment" of contaminated water after the completion of other processes.
The latest announcement that the goals of the road map have been achieved is merely the result of officials lowering their own hurdles. It reminds me of the time during World War II when the Imperial Japanese Army headquarters called the Japanese army's retreat a "shift in position."
The definition of "cold shutdown conditions" is a situation in which the temperature at the bottom of the reactor pressure vessels is below 100 degrees Celsius, and the radiation levels within the grounds of the nuclear complex are under 1 millisievert per year, among other factors. However, the heat gauges onsite have error margins of up to 20 degrees Celsius, and the exact temperature inside the reactors remains unknown. Furthermore, the amount of radiation includes only radiation in the atmosphere, and does not take into account radioactive materials released into the sea -- highlighting the vagueness of the standards.
Even Haruki Madarame, chairman of the Cabinet Office's Nuclear Safety Commission, stated, "We have never used the term 'cold shutdown conditions' before. Applying definitions to a nuclear reactor that has had a meltdown is difficult."
The government view disclosed by nuclear disaster minister Goshi Hosono that "the situation is under control onsite, but not offsite," is based only on circumstantial evidence; no one has actually seen inside the reactors. In this image released Saturday, April 16, 2011, by Tokyo Electric Power Co., top of the container of the nuclear reactor, painted in yellow, of Unit 4 at the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Plant is observed from its side with a T-Hawk drone Friday, April 15, 2011 in Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan. (AP Photo/Tokyo Electric Power Co.) In this image released Saturday, April 16, 2011, by Tokyo Electric Power Co., top of the container of the nuclear reactor, painted in yellow, of Unit 4 at the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Plant is observed from its side with a T-Hawk drone Friday, April 15, 2011 in Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan. (AP Photo/Tokyo Electric Power Co.)
We can only deduce that the "conclusion" of the crisis, rather than being based on scientific evidence, comes from placing priority on a political decision to create the impression that the crisis has been brought under control quickly. As the stance of a government that is supposed to protect the lives and property of people, such an approach is questionable.
In a news conference on Dec. 16, TEPCO President Toshio Nishizawa called the completion of the road map for bringing the crisis under control a "milestone," but a "milestone" achieved merely by lowering one's own targets is meaningless. The government bears a continued responsibility to monitor TEPCO until its nuclear reactors are decommissioned, and release all necessary information.
Japan has no need for inflated terms like "under control" and "cold shutdown conditions." It is the job of the government and TEPCO to seek "true control" of the disaster. ("As I see it," by Takuji Nakanishi, Tokyo Science and Environment News Department)
AEC chairman warned people within 170 km of Fukushima plant might need to relocate
The head of the government's nuclear energy panel warned in March that all residents in areas within a 170-kilometer radius of the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant might need to be relocated in a worst-case scenario, sources close to the government have disclosed.
Japan Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) Chairman Shunsuke Kondo made the warning in a report numbering about 20 pages, which he compiled on March 25 -- two weeks after the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant was hit by a massive tsunami generated by the Great East Japan Earthquake -- and submitted it to then Prime Minister Naoto Kan.
At the time, the plant had lost its reactor core cooling functions due to the loss of all external power, hydrogen explosions had ripped through the plant's No. 1, 3 and 4 reactor buildings, and radioactive substances were leaking from the No. 2 reactor due to a meltdown. Workers at the plant had no choice but to manually inject water into the reactors to cool down their cores.
Kondo assumed that in a worst-case scenario, another hydrogen explosion could occur in the No. 1, 2 or 3 reactor buildings, raising radiation levels. Continuing aftershocks would prevent workers from cooling down the reactors for an extended period and that all fuel in a pool for spent nuclear fuel in the No. 4 reactor building pool would melt. At the time, the pool held 1,535 fuel rods that could fill two nuclear reactors.
If that happened, Kondo estimated the level of radioactive cesium per square meter of soil in areas within a 170-kilometer radius of the plant would surpass 1.48 million becquerels -- as high as that around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant shortly after the crisis there broke out. Moreover, he estimated areas within 250 kilometers from the plant, including Tokyo and Yokohama, would be contaminated with radioactive substances to a degree that residents would have to be evacuated at least temporarily. A screen capture of a map released on Nov. 11 by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology displaying accumulated radioactive cesium levels in eastern Japan. (Mainichi) A screen capture of a map released on Nov. 11 by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology displaying accumulated radioactive cesium levels in eastern Japan. (Mainichi)
Kondo admitted having compiled the report.
"I assumed the worst-possible case. I've heard that it prompted utilities to strengthen cooling functions at their nuclear plants," he said.
In an interview with the Mainichi in September, Kan said, "All residents would have to be evacuated in areas 100, 200 or even 300 kilometers from the plant if the leak of radioactive substances can't be stopped." He apparently made the remark with Kondo's worst-case scenario in mind. http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnn...2a00m0na011000c.html
[This message has been edited by dennis_6 (edited 12-24-2011).]
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11:41 PM
Dec 26th, 2011
dennis_6 Member
Posts: 7196 From: between here and there Registered: Aug 2001
Hiroaki Koide, an assistant professor at the Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute (KURRI), is someone who has made one of the strongest impressions on me among the experts I've spoken to about the ongoing Fukushima nuclear disaster.
The public's views toward Koide have changed by the minute. He went from first being considered a nuclear "maverick" to a "pioneer" and finally to "one polemicist from the anti-nuclear camp." His ever-changing reputation has been symbolic of Japan's wavering between the promotion of nuclear energy and independence from it.
There's a reason why Koide came to mind as the year draws to a close. Last week, a government insider I've known for years wondered aloud whether they couldn't "drag someone like Koide" into the process of drawing up the government's new energy policy.
When I asked Koide about this, however, he responded: "I'm completely disillusioned with politics. No matter what committees are set up, nothing's going to change while politics continues to be carried out the way it is now. I won't accept a position from the government. When it comes to one-on-one public debates, however, I'm willing to go anywhere to participate."
Many of the experts who have been involved in the government's related committees since before the outbreak of the nuclear crisis on March 11 are pro-nuclear energy advocates. The inclusion of some anti-nuclear experts in discussions since March has created a bit of a stir, but they're still vastly outnumbered. Talks remain under the tight control of bureaucrats from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), as well as staff dispatched from utility companies. The lineup is so skewed to nuclear energy promotion that it even gets a government insider anxious to get "someone like Koide" involved.
The government is now reviewing its energy policy in terms of a management overhaul at the stricken plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), and comprehensive reform of the electric power system. It is beginning to look like TEPCO will be nationalized to ensure stable power supply, with the government obtaining at least two-thirds of TEPCO's shares. A final decision about the utility will be reached before account settlements for the fiscal year ending next March are made.
Meanwhile, the most significant point of contention within power system reform is nuclear power generation. The government claims it will present concrete energy policy options to the public next spring, with plans to finalize new policy by summer.
But that just isn't going to be possible. The government may be able to come up with options, but it won't be able to reach a decision. The issue of power reform is not something that the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), which has bungled the relocation of U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma and is floundering over the Yamba dam project, can handle.
Winning the public over is the biggest obstacle that lies ahead for the government. There is talk that some in the government and ruling party are advocating a referendum. But the government's planned timing of this process -- spring and summer of next year -- coincides with a critical time for Prime Minister Yoshiko Noda's cherished consumption tax bill. Can the government handle two such massive issues at once?
So what would happen if the debate over energy policy fails to pick up steam, and things proceed with the "nuclear village," a pro-nuclear collection of politicians, bureaucrats, academics and utilities, firmly in charge? A bureaucratic source offered the following vision: "Dependence on nuclear energy for our power supply can stay at (pre-March 11 levels of) 30 percent. This would still be lower than our original goal of achieving 50-percent dependence, so it would count as a 'reduction in nuclear dependence.' It would be acceptable to abandon the Monju fast-breeder project, but nuclear fuel reprocessing plants should be preserved. We would process MOX fuel from plutonium extracted from spent fuel, and export it at the same level as Britain and France."
This scheme is a pipe dream. Nuclear power plants across the country are being stopped for regular inspections, with no clear prospects of them being restarted. No one believes the government's recent announcement that "the crisis has been brought under control." This widespread mistrust is not something that one-sided rhetoric from government or business leaders can dispel.
Protests against an unjust system that forces rural communities to suffer for the power consumption of the country's cities has erupted far and wide. Some municipalities have even begun to return subsidies they received for hosting nuclear power plants to the national government.
If underestimating the public's anger and leaving decisions up to the nuclear village is Noda's political stance, then not just Koide, but also the rest of us, cannot help but be disillusioned. Changes must be made to the lineup of experts tasked to draw up energy policy, but the appeal is unlikely to be heard. Clearly, a possible hike in the consumption tax is not the only controversy that we'll face in the year 2012. (By Takao Yamada, Expert Senior Writer)
By Tsuyoshi Inajima and Stuart Biggs - Dec 26, 2011 9:01 AM CT
Fukushima Probe Highlights Nuclear Regulator
David Guttenfelder/Pool via Bloomberg
The crippled Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco) Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power station is seen through a bus window in Okuma Town, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan.
The crippled Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco) Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power station is seen through a bus window in Okuma Town, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan. Photographer: David Guttenfelder/Pool via Bloomberg
When engineering professor Yotaro Hatamura took the job of heading the independent investigation into the Fukushima disaster, he said he was looking for lessons rather than culprits. He may have changed his mind.
In a 507-page report published yesterday after a six-month investigation, Hatamura reserves some of his strongest criticism for Japan’s atomic power regulator, the Nuclear Industrial and Safety Agency, known as NISA.
NISA officials left the Dai-Ichi nuclear plant after the March 11 earthquake and when ordered to return by the government provided little assistance to Tokyo Electric Power Co. (9501) staff struggling to gain control of three melting reactors, according to the report.
“Monitoring the plant’s status was the most important action at that time, so to evacuate was very questionable,” the report by Hatamura’s 10-member team concluded. The committee found “no evidence that the NISA officials provided necessary assistance or advice.” Even though NISA’s manual said to stay at the plant, their manager gave the officials permission to evacuate, according to the report, which doesn’t name the manager.
The preliminary conclusions by Hatamura, who specializes in studies of industrial accidents caused by design flaws and human error, includes a slew of planning failures, breakdown in communication and operational mistakes by Tokyo Electric and the government before and after the earthquake and tsunami. No Power
While the utility supplied the electricity that kept homes, factories and offices running in metropolitan Tokyo, the world’s biggest city, lack of preparation for power failure in the Fukushima station left workers reduced to flashlights at the 864-acre plant site, the size of about 490 soccer fields.
Batteries in cell phones at the Fukushima plant started running out on March 11 and with the failure of mains power couldn’t be recharged, preventing communication with the on-site emergency headquarters, according to the report.
Because the utility known as Tepco hadn’t considered a tsunami overwhelming the Fukushima plant, no preparation was made for “simultaneous and multiple losses of power” causing station blackout, the document says. The blackout caused the failure of all personal handyphone system units in the plant, seriously disrupting communications among staff.
Communications became so fractured that plant manager Masao Yoshida, stationed in the emergency bunker, didn’t know what some workers were doing. The high pressure coolant injection system at the No. 3 reactor was stopped by a worker without authority from plant managers, according to the report. The reactor was one of the three that melted down. Muddled Response
In Tokyo, the central government’s response was muddled by miscommunication between two teams working on different floors of the same building, the report said.
The report by Hatamura, professor emeritus at University of Tokyo, serves as a time line for the chaos that ensued when the record magnitude-9 earthquake knocked out power and buckled roads before the tsunami flooded backup generators. Radiation fallout from the reactors forced the evacuation of about 160,000 people. The government has yet to say how many can return and when.
Jun Oshima, a spokesman for Tepco, declined to comment on the report as the utility is checking the contents, he said.
Hotlines between the central control room and the reactor buildings worked following the quake, while workers outside the buildings could use a total of nine transceivers, spokesman Masato Yamaguchi said earlier today. The company added 29 transceivers on March 13 and 80 more on March 15, Yamaguchi said. Failed Procedures
On NISA procedures, the report says the agency’s manual called for inspectors to remain at Dai-Ichi in an emergency while other officials head to the offsite emergency command office 5 kilometers (3 miles) away in Okuma town.
By March 14, all eight NISA officials, who are unidentified in the report, had left Dai-Ichi.
"The inspectors were in charge of gathering live information on the site,’’ Hiroyuki Fukano, director-general of NISA, told reporters in Tokyo last night. "It’s a serious problem that they didn’t do their job, though it’s a matter of NISA’s system, rather than individual inspectors," said Fukano who was appointed after the former head Nobuaki Terasaka was fired in August. More Interviews
Kazuma Yokota, NISA’s chief inspector at Dai-Ichi at the time of the quake, said in an interview with Bloomberg News in April he was one of three inspectors who left the plant 15 minutes after the temblor for Okuma. The three reached the center in 15 minutes and found it wrecked, power down and no working communications, he said.
A person who answered a call to Yokota’s cell phone today said it was a wrong number. An official reached by phone in NISA’s office in Fukushima said Yokota was not available.
Hatamura’s full report is expected in the summer of 2012, when it will include interviews with former Prime Minister Naoto Kan and other Cabinet officials. Those interviews weren’t completed for the interim report due to time constraints, according to a briefing by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry last week.
The committee interviewed 456 people over a total of 900 hours of hearings by Dec. 16, according to the report.
Interviewing Kan may be necessary to reach a conclusion on media reports that former Tepco President Masataka Shimizu requested to evacuate all employees from the plant following the disaster.
Tepco has denied it made that request, while Hatamura’s report said the company was planning a “partial evacuation.” Human Error
Hatamura was appointed by the government in May to lead an “impartial and multifaceted” investigation into the nuclear accident, the worst since Chernobyl in 1986.
He received his Ph.D. in industrial mechanical engineering from the University of Tokyo in 1973 and began studying human error after finding his students were more interested in how projects can go wrong, according to the publisher of his book “Learning from Failure.”
The Failure Knowledge Database that he set up has studies on more than 1,100 accidents, including a case study of Tokyo Electric and its falsification of nuclear plant maintenance records, which the utility admitted in 2002. The study concludes the faked reports resulted from lack of quality control and proper risk management.
The disaster at Dai-Ichi shows the need for a “paradigm shift in the basic principles of disaster prevention” at nuclear power plants, Hatamura’s committee concluded in today’s report. “It’s inexcusable that a nuclear accident couldn’t be managed because a major event such as the tsunami exceeded expectations.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Tsuyoshi Inajima in Tokyo at tinajima@bloomberg.net; Stuart Biggs in Tokyo at sbiggs3@bloomberg.net
Tokyo Electric Power Company says it will use an industrial endoscope to study the inside of a damaged reactor at the Fukushima Nuclear power plant.
The utility says the 10-meter long and 8-millimeter wide device will be deployed from next month to measure temperatures and observe other conditions inside the containment vessel at the No.2 reactor.
The government announced on December 16th that all the reactors have been brought under control. But there is not much information on the inside of the containment vessels in the reactors.
The endoscopy will provide the first opportunity to see the inside of a containment vessel of one of the 3 reactors since nuclear fuel melted down in March.
At the bottom of the containment vessels, parts of the nuclear fuel are believed to be piled up after melting through the wall of the pressure vessels.
The firm will start drilling a hole in the northwest wall of the containment vessel at the No. 2 reactor next month so that the high-level radiation proof endoscope can be inserted through it.
TEPCO said it wants to study the extent to which existing technologies can be used for the decommissioning of the reactors before it develops new ones.
It seems as if there are either more wackos than sensible people on the subject of Fukushima or the ones downplaying the disaster were wacko. -----------------------------------
Goshi Hosono, Minister of State for the Nuclear Power Policy and Administration (Nuclear Accident Minister) with translator
Recorded Dec. 19, 2011
Transcript Summary
* In regard to where the nuclear fuel might be there are 3 possibilities: * Possibility 1: In pressure vessel * Possibility 2: In containment vessel * “The third possibility is it [nuclear fuel] might have worked it’s way out through the containment vessel and be underneath it” [...] * “In regard to that third possibility that some fuel may have worked its way out of the containment vessel and gone underneath it, I think there’s a very strong possibility…we think there is a strong possibility that some fuel is in that location as well.” http://enenews.com/top-japa...essel-reactors-video
Goshi Hosono, Minister of State for the Nuclear Power Policy and Administration (Nuclear Accident Minister) with translator
Recorded Dec. 19, 2011
Transcript Excerpt
“Certainly if you are exposed to radioactive materials it is true that even though it might me a small percentage, the increased risk that you will encounter of contracting cancer is something you cannot avoid. In other words you will have this increased possibility that you might contract cancer.”
131I is a fission product with a yield of 2.878% from uranium-235,[7] and can be released in nuclear weapons tests and nuclear accidents. However, the short half-life means it is not present in significant quantities in cooled spent nuclear fuel, unlike iodine-129 whose half-life is nearly a billion times that of I-131. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iodine-131
Hey Phonedawgz want to remind me how Iodine 131 is not a fission product?
[This message has been edited by dennis_6 (edited 12-27-2011).]
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12:59 PM
dennis_6 Member
Posts: 7196 From: between here and there Registered: Aug 2001
Extremely high radiation levels of more than 250,000 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive cesium have been detected in male flowers of cedar trees in the no-entry zone near the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
Japan's forestry agency collected male cedar flowers at 87 locations in Fukushima Prefecture from late November to early December to measure the levels of radioactive cesium.
The agency detected 253,000 becquerels of the radioactive substance per kilogram in the flowers collected at Omaru in the town of Namie, 11.3 kilometers from the plant. 29 locations saw levels exceed 10,000 becquerels.
The maximum amount of cedar pollen measured in the air when in season by the environment ministry was 2,207 grains per cubic meter.
The forestry agency says if people breathe this concentration for 4 months they would be exposed to 0.553 microsieverts of radiation.
The agency reports this is not a great health hazard as it is only about 10 times what a person would be exposed to from normal background radiation in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward.
As usual you are wrong again and again and again and again.
Show me where I ever said anything about Iodine 131 not being a fission product.
SO is it that you are mistaken, or just intentionally changing the facts again?
You stated there was no re-criticality. Yet, you claim to have not stated fission is not happening. In a reactors shut down state fission does not occur, when a reactor is in its powered on state fission occurs, also known as criticality. So were you mistaken, just intentionally changing the facts again?
"Also in the core are control rods. These rods have pellets inside that are made of very efficient neutron capturers. An example of such a material is cadmium. These control rods are connected to machines that can raise or lower them in the core. When they are fully lowered into the core, fission can not occur because they absorb free neutrons. However, when they are pulled out of the reactor, fission can start again anytime a stray neutron strikes a 235U atom, thus releasing more neutrons, and starting a chain reaction. " http://library.thinkquest.o...r/fission_power.html
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03:23 PM
phonedawgz Member
Posts: 17091 From: Green Bay, WI USA Registered: Dec 2009
You are making statements about me that I never have said. I am not an idiot. You are. I do NOT want some idiot making statements and attributing them to me.
So shut the **** up.
quote
Originally posted by dennis_6:
No, you just said criticality wasn't happening. However, that exposes your lies. I know you can see what I did there.
[This message has been edited by phonedawgz (edited 12-27-2011).]
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04:32 PM
Dec 28th, 2011
phonedawgz Member
Posts: 17091 From: Green Bay, WI USA Registered: Dec 2009
I didn't post the thread about the reactors having concrete poured on them. Fail number one for you. The mainstream media was reporting that they were going to though. So fail number 2 for you. Fail number 3 for you is anyone who has followed this thread, knows that you only believe the opposite extreme. That everything in Fukushima is completely under control and life will soon be back to normal, with no lasting ill effects. Thats about as likely to be the case as 14,000 dead in the US from fallout. It seems you still don't understand why I posted that journal entry.
