Aug 31 (Reuters) - The following lists nuclear power plants in the path of Hurricane Irene and
their status as of early Wednesday.
Some plants remained fully operational through the storm, while a few were shut or reduced power in advance of expected major storm surge.
In Maryland, Constellation Energy Nuclear Group's Calvert Cliffs 1 facility remained shut offline after a transformer was hit by a section of aluminum siding during the storm.
The North Anna nuclear plant in Virginia remains shut following last week's earthquake in the region. The plant cannot be restarted until the operator can show no functional damage occurred to equipment needed for safe operation. [ID:nN1E77S184]
STATE OWNER PLANT MONDAY STATUS RESTART TIMING CAPACITY MW
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Connecticut Dominion Millstone Unit 2 BACK AT FULL PWR N/A 884
Connecticut Dominion Millstone Unit 3* BACK AT FULL PWR N/A 1,227
Maryland Constellation Calvert Cliffs 1* UP TO 2 PT UNKNOWN 873
Maryland Constellation Calvert Cliffs 2 NO IMPACT N/A 862
Massachusetts Entergy Pilgrim NO IMPACT N/A 685
New Hampshire NextEra Seabrook NO IMPACT N/A 1,295
New Jersey PSEG Nuclear Salem Unit 1 NO IMPACT N/A 1,174
New Jersey PSEG Nuclear Salem Unit 2 NO IMPACT N/A 1,130
New Jersey PSEG Nuclear Hope Creek NO IMPACT N/A 1,161
New Jersey Exelon Oyster Creek* BACK AT FULL PWR N/A 619
New York Entergy Indian Point 2 NO IMPACT N/A 1,020
New York Entergy Indian Point 3 NO IMPACT N/A 1,025
N. Carolina Progress Brunswick Unit 1* BACK AT FULL PWR N/A 938
N. Carolina Progress Brunswick Unit 2* UP TO 94 PCT N/A 937
N. Carolina Progress Harris Unit 1 NO IMPACT N/A 900
Pennsylvania Exelon Limerick 1 BACK AT FULL PWR N/A 1,134
Pennsylvania Exelon Limerick 2 BACK AT FULL PWR N/A 1,134
Virginia Dominion Surry Unit 1 NO IMPACT N/A 799
Virginia Dominion Surry Unit 2 NO IMPACT N/A 799
Virginia Dominion North Anna Unit 1 OFFLINE UNKNOWN 980.5
Virginia Dominion North Anna Unit 2 OFFLINE UNKNOWN 972.9
Vermont Entergy Vermont Yankee NO IMPACT N/A 620
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Key:
GE - General Electric
WH - Westinghouse
Numbers in brackets show current power output
Stations to which NRC dispatched additional staff
Sources: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, companies
(Reporting by Eileen Moustakis, Jeanine Prezioso, Selam Gebrekidan, David Sheppard, Joshua
Schneyer and Matthew Robinson in New York, Eileen O'Grady in Houston;editing by Sofina Mirza-Reid)
Source: koizuka77 YouTube Channel
Date: 8/27/2011 upload date
Keiko Ichikawa, the author of "A Letter from Fukushima", says why we hardly see malformed children in Japan and what will possibily happen hereafter, in the symposium on the accident of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant held in Odawara on 21st Aug 2011.
While everybody has been focused on hurricane Irene, the 5.8 scale earthquake that massaged the East Coast has fallen into the public’s rear-view mirror. The public had best do a quick head swivel, however, and pay attention to this odd little geological event. It was not just a bit of rock and roll that cracked the facade of the Washington Monument (insert pithy and wry observation about the metaphoric meaning of that here), it provided a wake-up call, a good tug at the bed sheets, for our sleepy nuclear watchdogs.
... Read full article here
Source: ENENews
Date: August 29th, 2011 at 02:39 PM
UCB Milk Sampling, UC Berkeley, August 25, 2011: The MDA was reduced considerably since the last test on August 11.
Milk with best buy date of August 22, 2011:
Cesium-134 .047 Becquerels per liter (1.27 picocuries per liter)
Cesium-137 .052 Bq/liter (1.41 pCi/l)
A total of 2.78 pCi/l of radioactive cesium was detected.
“EPA lumps these gamma and beta emitters together under one collective MCL [Maximum Contaminant Level], so if you’re seeing cesium-137 in your milk or water, the MCL is 3.0 picocuries per liter; if you’re seeing iodine-131, the MCL is 3.0; if you’re seeing cesium-137 and iodine-131, the MCL is still 3.0.” -Forbes.com
TOKYO (Kyodo) -- A worker in his 40s who had been engaged in recovery work at the crisis-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has died of acute leukemia, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Tuesday.
... Read full article here
[Editor's Note: I extracted the Thom Hartman interview segment with Beyond Nuclear's Paul Gunter concerning the North Anna Nuclear Generating Station which is run by Dominion Generation (the company stock is listed as Dominion Resources). Some disturbing points are brought up. This nuclear power plant actually had its seismic sensors removed in the 1990's due to budget cuts. The Lake Anna Dam, which was constructed on the North Anna River to create Lake Anna, an artificial reservoir to cool the North Anna nuclear plant, was recently inspected for earthquake damage and passed inspection. However, as Mr. Gunter notes, America's crumbling infrastructure has low D- ratings on many of its dams with regards to upkeep, including this one. Also, due to the nuclear power plant being very close to the epicenter of the 5.8 magnitude quake, Gunter feels that damage to the nuclear plant's is likely, such as cracked pipes which in the case of the Dresden nuclear power plant in Illinois, leaked radioactive tritium.
Source: KVUE.com (ABC affiliate)
Date: August 27, 2011 at 7:06 PM
by: WFAA
SOMERVELL COUNTY — Officials at the Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant have confirmed that someone crashed a vehicle into security barriers around the facility near Glen Rose early Saturday morning.
The facility reported the "unusual event" to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the property was locked down, according to a statement issued Saturday afternoon.
Luminant, the company that operates Comanche Peak, said the on-site security team used "appropriate security measures" and that a suspect was apprehended.
The company did not say whether the incident was accidental or intentional, nor did it specify what type of vehicle was involved. It was not made clear whether the suspect was injured.
“We are extremely proud of our on-site security team who acted commendably last night,” said Rafael Flores, Luminant’s chief nuclear officer, in a written statement provided to WFAA. “At this point, our primary focus is on the ongoing investigation, and we are working hand-in-hand with the Somervell County Sheriff’s Office and the NRC as they investigate this matter.”
A spokesperson for the Somervell County Sheriff's Office said the department could provide no information about the incident until Monday.
Luminant said the Comanche Peak plant resumed normal operating conditions on Saturday morning. An "unusual event" is the lowest of four emergency levels established by federal regulators.
Comanche Peak began operations in 1990 and has two reactors. It is located 80 miles southwest of Dallas.
More than a dozen nuclear plants in the path of Hurricane Irene along the U.S. East Coast safely weathered the storm’s passage without losing power to their reactors, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
... Read full article here
Two nuclear power plants have shutdown as Hurricane Irene continues to track up the US east coast. Oyster Creek, operated by Exelon in New Jersey, was powered down at around 17:00 EST, Saturday, as high winds approached. CENG's Calvert Cliff unit 1 reactor, based in Maryland, shut down automatically after aluminium debris hit a transformer.
Source: Reuters via CNBC
Date: Saturday, 27 Aug 2011 9:37 PM ET
Nuclear power plants along the East Coast prepared to face the impact of Hurricane Irene on Saturday as the storm made landfall in North Carolina and barreled up the coast.
Exelon Corp took its Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in New Jersey offline at 5 p.m. EDT on Saturday.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it sent additional staff to monitor conditions and storm preparation at the 14 nuclear units from Maryland to New Hampshire in Irene's path as well as a nuclear fuel production plant in North Carolina.
Entergy Corp, which operates the Indian Point nuclear plant in Buchanan, New York, said operations were not affected by the hurricane and the plant remained open on Saturday evening.
Dominion Resources Inc is reducing power at its two-unit 2,111-megawatt Millstone plant in Connecticut ahead of the storm, a company spokesman said on Saturday.
Progress Energy's Brunswick nuclear plant, perched on the North Carolina coast, cut to 65 to 75 percent power late on Friday and does not expect to return to full power until after the storm has fully passed, a spokesman said on Saturday.
Dominion shut down its North Anna nuclear power station because of an earthquake on Tuesday. The two-unit, 1,950-megawatt North Anna plant will remain shut through the storm.
The company's two-unit, 1,598-MW Surry plant in Virginia was designed to withstand winds of 360 mph and is expected to remain at full power throughout the storm, a spokesman said on Saturday.
Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan sparked a succession race after announcing his resignation, undone by a backlash over his handling of the March earthquake and tsunami that spawned the nation’s deepest postwar crisis.
... Read full article here
Editor's Note: Below is a related RT News video on the topic.
Japan's Prime Minister has formally announced his resignation, paving the way for the country's sixth leader in 5 years. His move follows nationwide criticism of his response to the devastating earthquake and tsunami that took place in March, and triggered a nuclear crisis at the Fukushima plant. The twin natural disasters claimed the lives of more than 15,000 people, with survivors complaining about slow recovery efforts. A new leader of the ruling Democratic Party, who'll most likely become Japan's next Prime Minister, will be chosen on Monday.
New TEPCO data measured on August 19 & 20 shows severe damage to the spent fuel in Fukushima Daiichi Units 1, 2, and 3. The adjacent TEPCO table posted on the front page shows incredibly high levels of Cesium 137 and Cesium 134 in all three spent fuel pools of Units 1, 2, & 3. This TEPCO data clearly contradicts and refutes the July assertion by the NRC the Fukushima Daiichi spent fuel pools were not damaged in this tragic accident. Crytome (cry to me) has a new high resolution photo, also uploaded, that shows the extensive damage of the Unit 3 spent fuel pool and the reactor building. Check it out.
Source: Associated Press via Silver City Sun-News
Date: 08/26/2011 02:26:52 PM MDT
Nuclear reactors sit on eight coastal sites along the Eastern seaboard in the projected path of Hurricane Irene. They are built to withstand winds much stronger than those expected from Irene. They are also equipped with backup generators protected from flooding to provide power to keep the reactor cool if outside power is lost. Still, some will likely be shut down as a precaution in advance of Irene's winds and heavy rains.
North Carolina
Brunswick Nuclear Power Plant
Location: Near Southport, N.C., 30 miles south of Wilmington.
Operator: Progress Energy
Virginia
Surry Power Station
Location: Surry County, Va., 35 miles northwest of Norfolk.
Operator: Dominion Resources
Maryland
Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant
Location: Lusby, Md., 60 miles southeast of Washington.
Operator: Constellation Energy
New Jersey
Salem and Hope Creek Nuclear Generating Stations
Location: Lower Alloways Creek, NJ, 20 miles south of Wilmington, Del.
Operator: PSEG
Oyster Creek Generating Station
Location: Lacey Township, NJ, 60 miles east of Philadelphia.
Operator: Exelon
Connecticut
Millstone Power Station
Location: Waterford, Conn., 60 miles southeast of Hartford.
Operator: Dominion Resources
Massachusetts
Pilgrim Nuclear Station
Location: Plymouth, Mass., 45 miles south of Boston.
Operator: Entergy
New Hampshire
Seabrook Station
Location: Seabrook, NH, 45 miles north of Boston.
Operator: NextEra Energy
Source: Bloomberg
Date: Aug 24, 2011 12:25 AM CT
by: Tsuyoshi Inajima and Yuji Okada
Japan will more than triple the number of regions it checks for airborne radiation as more contaminated “hot spots” are discovered far from Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s crippled Fukushima nuclear power station.
The government said it will increase radiation monitoring by helicopter to 22 prefectures from the six closest to the plant, which began spewing radiation after an earthquake and tsunami struck the station in March. The plan comes after radioactive waste more than double the regulatory limit was found 200 kilometers (125 miles) from the plant this week.
Authorities have refused to give a cumulative figure for radiation released from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant after estimating in June that fallout in the six days following the quake was equal to 15 percent of total radiation released in the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986. The authorities have been too slow to widen airborne radiation testing, said Tetsuo Ito, the head of Kinki University’s Atomic Energy Research Institute in Osaka.
“The government should have expanded the monitoring area by helicopters much earlier to ease concerns among the public,” Ito said in a telephone interview yesterday.
Officials on Aug. 12 found compost in a kindergarten yard in Tokamachi city, Niigata prefecture containing radioactive cesium measuring 27,000 becquerels per kilogram, Kenichiro Kasuga, an official at the city’s disaster prevention department, said by phone.
... Read full article here
A nuclear power plant that was shut down after an earthquake struck central Virginia Tuesday had seismographs removed in 1990s due to budget cuts.
U.S. nuclear officials said that the North Anna Power Station, which has two nuclear reactors, had lost offsite power and was using diesel generators to maintain cooling operations after an 5.9 earthquake hit the region.
The North Anna plant, which was near the epicenter of Tuesday's quake, is reportedly located on a fault line.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission rates the plant as the seventh most likely to receive core damage from a quake. But they say the chances of that are only 1 in 22,727.
According to the Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy (DMME), the Virginia Tech Seismological Observatory (VTSO) removed all seismographs from around the plant in the 1990s due to budget cuts.
In February, Dominion Virginia Power confirmed its commitment to add a third reactor to the plant.
"While Dominion has not decided on the schedule to build the unit, the company will continue to move forward with the federal combined operating license process and preliminary site development work," Dominion CEO Thomas F. Farrell II said in a statement.
Update: Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) Senior Scholar Bob Alvarez told the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) that the North Anna plant was built to withstand a 5.9-6.1 quake.
Source: NHK World
Date: 8/23/2011 (Wednesday, August 24, 2011 10:22 +0900 (JST))
US credit agency Moody's Investors Service has downgraded Japan's debt by one notch, on concerns over the country's worsening fiscal situation.
Moody's cut Japan's government bond rating on Wednesday to "Double A 3" from "Double A 2".
The new rating ranks Japanese debt at the same level as that of countries like China and Chile.
The agency says it made the downgrade because the effects of the March disaster and resulting power shortages are slowing Japan's economic growth.
It added that the country has failed to hammer out viable plans for reforming its social security and tax system.
Without a clear direction, Moody's says, Japan's economy will deteriorate further.
But the agency notes that Japan has the largest external assets among advanced economies. It says the country will continue to win the trust of the market as long as it manages to improve its fiscal condition.
On the downgrade, Japan's Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda said he will not comment on a private-sector agency's assessment. But he said that going by recent bond auctions, the market's trust in Japanese government bonds remains firm.
(CNN) -- Tuesday's Virginia earthquake triggered the shutdown of a nearby nuclear power plant and spurred declarations of "unusual events" at plants as far away as Michigan, U.S. authorities reported.
Dominion Virginia Power said both reactors at its North Anna plant, less than 20 miles from the epicenter of the magnitude-5.8 quake, shut down after the first tremors. Amanda Reidelbach, an emergency management spokeswoman for Louisa County, said the plant vented steam, but there was no release of radioactive material.
David Heacock, the utility's chief nuclear officer, said the plant was operating on emergency power and the units were safely deactivated.
"The plants are designed for this kind of a seismic event," Heacock said. "There is no apparent damage to anything at the plant right now."
Heacock said the plant had four diesel generators supplying backup power and that those generators had three days of fuel. However, off-site electric power was expected to be restored later Tuesday, he said.
Dominion Virginia said reactors at its other nuclear station, the Surry plant near Newport News, were still running.
The North Anna plant is about 50 miles northwest of Richmond and about 90 miles southwest of Washington. Operators declared an alert -- the second-lowest level of emergency reporting under U.S. nuclear regulations -- after the quake struck shortly before 2 p.m., the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said.
Twelve other plants in six states issued an "unusual event" declaration, the lowest level of emergency notice, according to the NRC. They included the Shearon Harris plant in North Carolina; the Calvert Cliffs plant in Maryland; Pennsylvania's Susquehanna, Three Mile Island, Limerick and Peach Bottom plants; the Oyster Creek, Hope Creek and Salem plants in New Jersey; and the D.C. Cook and Palisades plants in Michigan.
"All these plants continue to operate while plant personnel examine their sites," the NRC said.
CNN's Emily Smith, Jeanne Meserve, Scott Bronstein and Shawn Nottingham contributed to this report.
CNBC (host Bill Griffith) reports that the North Anna Nuclear Generating Station has shutdown automatically due to the magnitude 5.9 earthquake with its epicenter at Mineral, Virginia. The nuclear power plant is located about 10 miles Northeast of the epicenter of the quake and is running on backup diesel generators (presumably after losing external power!) per CNBC host Mandy Drury. Dominion Resources stock took a hit after the quake, which CNBC host Brian Sullivan mulls over. Was it a pre-packaged black box algorithm? I have parsed together some video clips of the CNBC coverage with the relevant sound bytes related to the nuclear plant.
Source: Alexander Higgins Blog
Date: August 22, 2011 at 3:35 pm Radiation soil tests from 150 sites in the Tokyo metropolitan area finds Cesium radiation up to levels limits nearly twice the Chernobyl dead zone evacuation limit of 500,000 Bq/Sq meter.
... Read full article here
Source: Alexander Higgins Blog
Date: August 22, 2011 at 5:47 am Radiation in Saint Louis spikes to 178 times background levels reading 1.786 millirems per hour, which is a dose of approximately 156.45 millisieverts per year.
... Read full article here
Source: Alexander Higgins Blog
Date: 8/21/2011 In a deceitful article that downplays the extent and severity of the radiation contamination, the NY Times has announced that Japan is expected officially declare a large area of Japan surrounding Fukushima indefinitely uninhabitable, perhaps for decades.
... Read full article here
Source: Dr. Sircus' Blog
Date: 8/21/2011
by: Dr. Mark Sircus
The Last Parade
The China Syndrome:“A hypothetical sequence of events
following the meltdown of a nuclear reactor, in which the core
melts through its containment structure and deep into the earth.” New Oxford American Dictionary.
Normally I would start an essay like this with the video below at the top, but I find it important to introduce it and the general tone this essay is going to take first. There are only two ways we learn. It’s either repetition or impact. Because the truth is getting out of hand, I am going for impact.
... Read full article here
Newly released neutron data from three University of California San Diego scientists confirms Fairewinds' April analysis that the nuclear core at Fukushima Daiichi turned on and off after TEPCO claimed its reactors had been shutdown. This periodic nuclear chain reaction (inadvertent criticality) continued to contaminate the surrounding environment and upper atmosphere with large doses of radioactivity.
In a second area of concern, Fairewinds disagrees the NRC's latest report claiming that all Fukushima spent fuel pools had no problems following the earthquake. In a new revelation, the NRC claims that the plutonium found more than 1 mile offsite actually came from inside the nuclear reactors. If such a statement were true, it indicates that the nuclear power plant containments failed and were breached with debris landing far from the power plants themselves. Such a failure of the containment system certainly necessitates a complete review of all US reactor containment design and industry assurances that containments will hold in radioactivity in the event of a nuclear accident. The evidence Fairewinds reviewed to date continues to support its April analysis that the detonation in the Unit 3 Spent Fuel pool was the cause of plutonium found off site.
Third, the burning of radioactive materials (building materials, trees, lawn grass, rice straw) by the Japanese government will cause radioactive Cesium to spread even further into areas within Japan that have been previously clean, and across the Pacific Ocean to North America.
And finally, the Japanese government has yet to grasp the severity of the contamination within Japan, and therefore has not developed a coherent plan mitigate the accident and remediate the environment. Without a cohesive plan to deal with this ongoing problem of large scale radioactive contamination, the radioactivity will continue to spread throughout Japan and around the globe further exacerbating the problem and raising costs astronomically.
A young journalist went inside of the Fukushima plant getting disguised as an actual worker.
1) There is no ID check to get in.
2) They pay you 10,000JPY per 1mSv exposure. so if you are exposed to 10mSv in total,you are paid 100,000JPY.
3) The contract was 70,000JPY per day but it was actually about 13,000JPY.
4) Workers are really demotivated.Some of them are disaster refugees. They can’t help working there to earn the living.
5) He took pictures inside,he will publish them later.
6) There are at least 6 layers of sub-contract companies.The lowest level of the workers come and leave only for one day.However,nobody checks it.
7) Because of (6),workers don’t know each other. There is no Geiger counter in the facility. They hang a sheet of paper to show “the current” radiation level ,which is hand writing,at cafeteria,but it was still “April”.(He went there in August.) http://www.videonews.com/special-report/031040/002026.php
The Vermont health department says (Reuters published an article on 8/18/2011) they have been closely monitoring the radioactive tritium in groundwater originating from Vermont Yankee Nuclear Nuclear Power Plant as it has progressed in to the Connecticut River. Tritium levels tested by the state laboratory measured at 534 to 611 picocuries per liter. The EPA's maximum safe limit for drinking water is 20,000 picocuries per liter. Entergy stated that they found lower tritium levels from their own tests of river water, and that the levels registered below the official minimum detection limit. Entergy has also previously denied that strontium-90 found in a fish caught in the Connecticut river near Vermont Yankee originates from the nuclear power plant they run. [1]
The Vermont senate has voted to block the re-licensing of Vermont Yankee, whose current license to operate expires in March of 2012. The NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) has already granted a federal license for Entergy to continue operation of the nuclear power plant through March 21, 2032. Entergy has filed a lawsuit in federal court to overturn the state's veto law. [2]
Source: The Intel Hub
Date: 8/18/2011
by: Alexander Higgins
China has reported that the radioactive contamination in the Pacific Ocean from the Fukushima nuclear power plant is far wider than the areas released by the Japanese government.
China has discovered 100,000 square miles of Pacific Ocean waters, at distances up to 800 kilometers from Fukushima, with Cesium radiation levels up to 300 times normal and Strontium radiation levels up to 100 times normal.
... Read full article here
Source: NHK World
Date: Friday, August 19, 2011 15:57 +0900 (JST)
A magnitude 6.8 earthquake jolted the disaster-affected prefectures of Miyagi and Fukushima in northeastern Japan on Friday afternoon. A tsunami advisory was issued, but was later lifted.
The Meteorological Agency says the quake struck at around 2:36 PM. Its focus was off Fukushima, at a depth of 20 kilometers.
Tremors with an intensity of 5 minus on the Japanese scale of zero to 7 were observed in Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures. Smaller tremors were felt in wide areas from northern to western Japan.
The agency withdrew a tsunami advisory issued to coastal areas of Miyagi and Fukushima about 40 minutes after the quake.
No abnormalities are reported at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant that was struck by the March 11th earthquake and tsunami.
Tokyo Electric Power Company says external power sources are intact and that radiation readings around the plant are showing no changes.
Sendai City in Miyagi Prefecture says one person suffered a light injury. Fukushima Prefecture says there have been no reports of damage or casualties.
The Meteorological Agency says the latest quake is likely to be an aftershock from March. It warns that more strong tremors are possible during active seismic periods that will likely recur in cycles.
Editor's Note: Apparently the quake has since been downgraded to a 6.3 according to reports by both the USGS and ESMC. Is there a scientific reason for this or is the reason more sinister as YouTube activist dutchsinse suggests? Refer to map below for quake location.
Source: Bloomberg
Date: Aug 19, 2011 4:49 AM CT
by: Chisaki Watanabe
Medical tests on children living in three towns near the crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant found 45 percent of those surveyed suffered low-level thyroid radiation exposure, Japan’s government said in a statement.
While the statement didn’t comment on the source of the contamination, the announcement follows reports of radioactive material found in food after radiation leaks from the meltdown of three reactors at the Tokyo Electric Power Co. plant.
The tests covered 1,080 children aged up to 15 in three towns, Iwaki, Kawamata and Iitate, between 38 to 47 kilometers from the reactors. The tests between March 24 and 30 showed none of the children’s thyroid glands exceeded the safety threshold of 0.2 microsievert per hour set by the Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan, according to the Aug. 17 statement.
At least one child had 0.1 microsievert per hour, the highest level observed, while more than half of those exposed absorbed 0.01 microsievert per hour, the statement said. Children are susceptible to poisoning from radioactive iodine, which can accumulate in the thyroid and cause cancer, according to the World Health Organization.
On June 6, Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said the reactor meltdowns at the plant released about 770,000 tera becquerels of radioactive material into the air between March 11 and March 16, doubling an earlier estimate.
Chernobyl
That’s about 14 percent of the radiation emitted in the Chernobyl disaster in modern-day Ukraine. About 2 million people in Ukraine are under permanent medical monitoring 25 years after the accident, according to the nation’s embassy in Tokyo.
A becquerel represents one radioactive decay per second, which involves the release of atomic energy that can damage human cells and DNA, with prolonged exposure causing leukemia and other forms of cancer, according to the World Nuclear Association.
While 203 people were hospitalized and 31 died after the explosion at Chernobyl, about 400,000 children are considered to have received significant doses of radiation to their thyroid that merit monitoring, the embassy said.
Cases of thyroid cancer in Belarus, which neighbors Ukraine, increased for at least 10 years after 1986 in children younger than 14 and for almost 20 years among 20-24 year olds, according to research by Shunichi Yamashita of Nagasaki University, who was appointed as an adviser to Fukushima prefecture on radiation exposure.
Food Tests
Japan has no centralized system to check for radiation contamination of food, leaving local authorities and farmers conducting voluntary tests.
Products such as spinach, tea, milk, and fish have been found contaminated with cesium and iodine as far as 360 kilometers (224 miles) from the plant.
Adding to the concern, officials confirmed today rice from Hokota City, about 150 kilometers from Dai-Ichi, was found to contain low levels or cesium. It was the first confirmation of rice contamination since the March 11 accident.
To contact the reporters on this story: Chisaki Watanabe in Tokyo at cwatanabe5@bloomberg.net;
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Peter Langan at plangan@bloomberg.net
Source: UK Mail Online
Date: 6:54 PM on 17th August 2011
by: David Gardner
Japanese citizens have shown incredible honesty in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami that brought the country to its knees. It emerged yesterday that the Japanese returned almost $78million in cash found in the quake rubble. In the five months since the disaster struck, people have turned in thousands of wallets and purses found in the debris, containing nearly $30 million in cash.
Amidst the rubble: Police officers in protective suits searching for victims after the tsunami hit Fukushima Prefecture in Minamisoma City in March
More than 5,700 safes that washed ashore along the coastline have also been hauled to police stations by volunteers and rescue crews. ... Read full article here
Source: Wired Science
Date: August 9, 2011 11:54 am
by: Dave Mosher
New space-based images show the same tsunami that devastated Japan also caused a series of giant icebergs to break off halfway around the world in Antarctica.
... Read full article here
Source: The Examiner
Date: 8/14/2011
by: Deborah Dupre
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs 2009
Credits:
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan
Government agreed to downplay Fukushima radiation
Fukushima is far from stabilized according to energy advisor veteran with 39 years of nuclear power engineering experience, Arnie Gundersen who told Solar IMG Saturday that Americans, not just in the northwest, are unaware of being rained on with Fukushima nuclear hot particles and eating Fukushima contaminated food because the US government has deliberately minimized the catastrophe, partially due to a pact Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signed with Japan. Gundersen, with a team of other scientists, intends to prove government statements about Fukushima are false.
... Read full article here
Paul Gunter from Beyond Nuclear joins Thom Hartmann. Meanwhile, Japan is not out of the danger zone...in fact the nuclear crisis is getting worse and worse! We've recently learned from Japan that the amount of radiation released was more than 20 times that from the Hiroshima bomb, and now it looks they may be experiencing the early stages of a total China Syndrome meltdown. And is the United States in danger too?
The chart was stuck for a while so I stopped checking back, but noticed someone had posted an article from ENENEWS in one of my radiation groups in FaceBook. This is scary, 412 Sv/hour today in the reactor 1 dry well when reactor 2 and 3 show 10.9 and 3.69 Sieverts/hour respectively. Here is snapshot of the chart as of 12:40 PM CST:
Location:
Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant
Date:
March 11, 2011 (Friday) - 18 Aug 2011 (Thu)
Latest value:
D / W: four hundred and twelve Sv / h , S / C: .701 Sv / h
Present situation
Defective meter
Date
D / W
S / C
8 / 18
412
0.701
8 / 17
35.3
0.706
8 / 16
39.9
0.707
8 / 15
359
0.713
8 / 14
68.6
0.713
8 / 13
364
0.713
8 / 12
360
0.717
8 / 11
52.8
0.718
8 / 10
356
0.72
8 / 09
306
0.719
8 / 08
145
0.724
8 / 07
296
0.725
8 / 06
70.8
0.727
8 / 05
371
0.729
8 / 04
355
0.731
8 / 03
355
0.732
8 / 02
210
0.734
8 / 01
46.5
0.735
7 / 31
356
0.736
7 / 30
225
0.737
7 / 29
217
0.739
7 / 28
209
0.74
7 / 27
289
0.738
7 / 26
39.6
0.74
7 / 25
272
0.742
7 / 24
217
0.742
7 / 23
176
0.746
7 / 22
38.4
0.749
7 / 21
36.6
0.748
7 / 20
39.3
0.75
7 / 19
206
0.752
7 / 18
175
0.752
7 / 17
57.5
0.752
7 / 16
71.9
0.754
7 / 15
81.5
0.754
7 / 14
95
0.756
7 / 13
43.2
0.758
7 / 12
65
0.759
7 / 11
253
0.761
7 / 10
220
0.763
7 / 09
70
0.763
7 / 08
44.5
0.764
7 / 07
37.3
0.764
7 / 06
38.3
0.765
7 / 05
41.9
0.766
7 / 04
264
0.767
7 / 03
266
0.769
7 / 02
230
0.772
7 / 01
214
0.774
6 / 30
197
0.776
6 / 29
37.5
0.776
6 / 28
60
0.775
6 / 27
79.2
0.795
6 / 26
263
0.799
6 / 25
282
0.8
6 / 24
257
0.801
6 / 23
119
0.804
6 / 22
245
0.805
6 / 21
223
0.807
6 / 20
51
0.806
6 / 19
82.1
0.817
6 / 18
226
0.82
6 / 17
190
0.823
6 / 16
291
0.826
6 / 15
262
0.827
6 / 14
269
0.831
6 / 13
252
0.836
6 / 12
261
0.839
6 / 11
246
0.841
6 / 10
278
0.843
6 / 09
239
0.842
6 / 08
58
0.859
6 / 07
280
0.868
6 / 06
253
0.874
6 / 05
87.2
0.882
6 / 04
254
0.89
6 / 03
229
0.9
6 / 02
240
0.911
6 / 01
209
0.921
5 / 31
190
0.929
5 / 30
236
0.937
5 / 29
234
0.945
5 / 28
229
0.954
5 / 27
233
0.959
5 / 26
58.2
0.96
5 / 25
247
0.988
5 / 24
205
0.999
5 / 23
201
1.01
5 / 22
200
1.02
5 / 21
51.8
1.02
5 / 20
46.7
1.03
5 / 19
55.4
1.04
5 / 18
45.4
1.04
5 / 17
218
1.05
5 / 16
45.2
1.05
5 / 15
229
1.06
5 / 14
257
1.07
5 / 13
226
1.08
5 / 12
212
1.09
5 / 11
204
1.1
NISA plant parameters have been published (when the reactor), the amount of nuclear radiation has been graphed.
You can check the daily water temperature, pressure and radiation dose of No. 1-5, Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power reactors.
As soon as the data is published and updated as the graph.
All information is automatically graphed the information that is published by CSV. No. 4 is the value of CSV information has not been published, not shown.
Meaning of the terms in the chart below. D / W stands for ... well dry. Containment vessel to the body. S / C ... stands for the suppression chamber. To the pressure suppression chamber.
※ The value of the graph shows the maximum absolute value of the day.
Workers at Japan's Fukushima plant say the ground under the facility is cracking and radioactive steam is escaping through the fissures. They also say pipes and at least one reactor were seriously damaged before the tsunami hit the area in March. RT talks to Christopher Busby of the European Committee on Radiation Risks.
I noted in May that that International Atomic Energy Agency knew within weeks of the Japanese earthquake that the reactors had melted down ... but the public was not told for a month and a half.
I pointed out in June:
As the prestigious scientific journal Nature notes:
Shortly after a massive tsunami struck the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on 11 March, an unmanned monitoring station on the outskirts of Takasaki, Japan, logged a rise in radiation levels. Within 72 hours, scientists had analysed samples taken from the air and transmitted their analysis to Vienna, Austria — the headquarters of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), an international body set up to monitor nuclear weapons tests.
It was just the start of a flood of data collected about the accident by the CTBTO's global network of 63 radiation monitoring stations. In the following weeks, the data were shared with governments around the world, but not with academics or the public.
(Indeed, the government's response to everycrisis appears to be to try to cover it up; and see this.)
Today, Yomiuri Shinbun reports (Google translation) that the U.S. knew within days that Fukushima had melted down:
The subject of evacuating the US citizens was raised in the early hours on March 16 (local time). The US ... already knew about the unusually high temperature of the reactors from the Global Hawk data, and determined that “the fuel has already melted”.
***
The US high-ranking officials wanted to evacuate the US citizens [Tokyo] but the local officials including Maher objected, as “it would severely undermine the US-Japan alliance”
TOKYO (BNO NEWS) -- A strong earthquake struck off the eastern coast of Japan on late Wednesday evening, seismologists said, but there were no reports of damage or casualties.
The 5.9-magnitude earthquake at 9.44 p.m. local time (1144 GMT) was centered about 303 kilometers (188 miles) east of Iwaki, a city located in the southern part of the Hamadōri coastal region of Fukushima Prefecture. It struck about 10 kilometers (6 miles) deep, making it a shallow earthquake, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA).
Tremors with an intensity of 2 on the Japanese seismic scale of 0 to 7 were felt in several areas near the coast, but there were no reports of damage or casualties. The United States Geological Survey (USGS), which measured the strength of the earthquake at 6.2 on the Richter scale, estimated that some 3 million people in the region may have felt light shaking.
Because earthquakes with a magnitude below 7 do normally not generate tsunamis, neither JMA nor the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a tsunami watch or warning. "This earthquake poses no tsunami risk," JMA said.
Japan, which is on the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, is still recovering from an enormous 9.0-magnitude earthquake which struck off the coast of northeastern Japan on March 11, generating a large tsunami. The earthquake and resulting tsunami left at least 15,698 people killed while 4,666 others remain missing and are feared dead.
(Copyright 2011 by BNO News B.V. All rights reserved. Info: sales@bnonews.com.)
Editor's Note: Click here for USGS report. Map of earthquake below.
Disclaimer: I do not necessarily agree with the dutchsinse claim below that USGS downgrades the severity of quakes, but thought it was an interesting analysis nonetheless and worth mentioning. Dutchsinse Take on the Quake
Magnitude 6.2 Wednesday, August 17, 2011 at 11:44:07 UTC Wednesday, August 17, 2011 at 09:44:07 PM at epicenter
Location 36.776°N, 143.773°E
Depth 10 km (6.2 miles) (poorly constrained)
Region OFF THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
Distances 304 km (188 miles) E of Iwaki, Honshu, Japan
339 km (210 miles) E of Mito, Honshu, Japan
349 km (216 miles) ESE of Sendai, Honshu, Japan
418 km (259 miles) ENE of TOKYO, Japan
Source: Wealth Wire
Date: August 17th, 2011
by: Brittany Stepniak
Eggs are about to get expensive...really expensive. And we aren't talking about Natalie Portman's $600 carton of eggs either...
We're talking about the dangerously contaminated eggs in Japan related to the nuclear power plant meltdown earlier this Spring.
After government withheld some seriously unnerving information about the amount of radiation leakage, some skeptical farmers have taken it upon themselves to bring their products to volunteer testing stations.
... Read full article here
Workers at Japan's Fukushima plant say the ground under the facility is cracking and radioactive steam is escaping through the cracks. The cooling system at the plant failed after the devastating tsunami hit Japan in March, sparking a nuclear crisis. But new evidence suggests that Fukushima reactors were doomed to cripple even before the massive wave reached them. RT's Anissa Naouai talks to Dr. Robert Jacobs, a Professor at the Hiroshima Peace Institute.
Source: Forbes
Date: 8/16/2011 @ 02:55PM
by: Jeff McMahon
The Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant before the disaster. Image via Wikipedia
When the news broke yesterday that a previously unreported type of fallout from Fukushima—radioactive sulfur—had reached the United States in late March, nearly all mainstream media reports made the claim that it poses no threat to the health of Americans. But none of them explained where the radioactive sulfur went.
And if you’re a man, you may be interested to know that some miniscule portion of it could be in your testicles.
... Read full article here
Source: Time Health
Date: 8/15/2011
by: Eben Harrell
These containers were used to transport low-level radioactive waste in Clive, Utah
George Frey / Bloomberg News / Getty Images
Some 2 billion years ago, a natural-uranium deposit deep underground in what is now the west-central African country of Gabon spontaneously went critical. In the only known case of a nuclear-fission reactor forming naturally on earth, the Gabon deposit fissioned just like a modern-day power plant. As well as generating a substantial amount of heat, the uranium also produced a huge quantity of radioactive waste products, including around four tons of plutonium. Because this naturally occurring nuclear waste was buried deep underground, it remained remarkably well confined as it decayed over the course of millennia.
... Read full article here
Nuclear Expert: Radioactive Rain-Outs Will Continue For a Year - Even In Western U.S. and Canada - Because Japanese Are Burning Radioactive Materials
Nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen says in a new interview that the Japanese are burning radioactive materials. The radioactivity originated from Fukushima, but various prefectures are burning radioactive materials in their terroritories.
Gundersen says that this radioactivity ends up not only in neighboring prefectures, but in Hawaii, British Columbia, Oregon, Washington and California.
He notes that radioactive rain-outs were documented recently in British Columbia and Oklahoma with geiger counters.
Gundersen says that well see another year of radioactive rain-outs, as the Japanese continue to burn radioactive materials.
Cover Up By American and Canadian Governments
Gundersen has a high-level contact in the State Department who says that the U.S. government has decided - within various agencies, including the State Department, FDA, and other agencies - to downplay the dangers from Fukushima. Because of this policy decision, the government is not really testing for radiation.
Gundersen is working with scientists who will publish a paper in the near future definitively debunking Canadian and American health officials' claims that only harmless levels of radiation are being released. Click here to listen to the interview.
See this or background.
For a 1 square meter area of electrosyl's solar panel wiped with a paper towel, 20000 CPM is registered on his Geiger counter, when 40-50 is the normal background. This is radiation 400-500 times the normal background radiation as emitted by the paper towel. The location is "just North of Toronto."
Part 1
Hi all!
This is part 1 of my measurements of the radioactivity falling on the north of GTA (Greater Toronto Area), Canada on August 14th 2011 at 17h55.
Aprox. 1 square meter of smooth surface wiped (glass, solar panels).
Measured with a Eberline HP-260 Pancake Probe and with a Eberline E-140 counter. (Sorry for the crappy video quality, I was using my cell phone camera, I guess it's alright for a first upload...)
I measured 20 000 cpm per square meter of wipe today!!! This is the all time record since I have been taking measurements since March 14th 2011 . Previous record was 10 000cpm (counts per minute).
One panel I always keep clean, but the other panels collected quite a bit of dirt which seems to increase the radioactivity collection ability. The panels were not radioactive before it rained.
The decay rate is typically 33min - 45minutes. This matches Radon decay daughter products being selectively washed out of the atmosphere, (hence the variable decay rate.)
Where is it from? Is it normal? Is it from Fukushima? Is the NWO spiking the clouds with radioactive isotopes for weather modification? Dunno. I all know, is we get cooked virtually every time it rains or snows. The levels are increasing. In the beginning the levels were roughly doubling every 2 weeks. Since the start of the summer the levels stabilized to 3500-5000 cpm per sq. meter every time it rained. But today, yikes! 20 000cpm!
Luckily the decay rate is short and I never detect any residual radiation in the wipes after a day or so. That's what is saving us from being cooked well done.
I've noticed that the worse the storm, the more extreme the weather, the higher the counts, leading me to think that this is done on purpose:
From the reasearch I did, Radon is a heavy gas that is 8 times as heavy as air, so it hugs the ground, aprox. 100 meters or less is where it tends to collect. So if this is ground Radon why does the levels increase if it rains all day?
Wouldn't it wash out of the air after 15 minutes or so and then the levels should drop?
(My area is not known for Radon collecting in basements).
I matched the highest counts with days where the storm clouds were the tallest in the troposphere. This is much too high for Radon to collect.
Is it being pumped there on purpose? Would Radon daughters charge up and seed rain and snowflakes? Dunno?
Is it coming from space? Radon has a very short half life of 8 days, I don't think it would be floating around in space and stay radioactive for billions of years waiting for the earth's gravity to pick it up...
Could it be traveling from Fukushima via the jet stream? It doesn't make sense, as the Radon gas is 8 times as heavy as air.
Could it be traveling from Fukushima via ground winds? Maybe?
Could it be Radon coming from the tailings from the Uranium mines and washing out by the rain? At these levels? Yikes we need to shut down all the mines and cover up the tailings quick!
Has anyone any insight on this? I know what I'm measuring it's real, it's no trick and the radioactivity falling in my area is real... The question is where is it from?
Thanks for your time!
:o)
Electrosyl
Part 2
Hi all!
This is part 2 of my measurements of the radioactivity falling on the north of GTA (Greater Toronto Area), Canada on August 14th 2011 at 17h55.
Aprox. 1 square meter of smooth surface wiped (glass, solar panels).
Measured with a Eberline HP-260 Pancake Probe and with a Eberline E-140 counter. (Sorry for the crappy video quality, I was using my cell phone camera, I guess it's alright for a first upload...)
I measured 20 000 cpm per square meter of wipe today!!! This is the all time record since I have been taking measurements since March 14th 2011 . Previous record was 10 000cpm (counts per minute).
One panel I always keep clean, but the other panels collected quite a bit of dirt which seems to increase the radioactivity collection ability. The panels were not radioactive before it rained.
The decay rate is typically 33min - 45minutes. This matches Radon decay daughter products being selectively washed out of the atmosphere, (hence the variable decay rate.)
Where is it from? Is it normal? Is it from Fukushima? Is the NWO spiking the clouds with radioactive isotopes for weather modification? Dunno. I all know, is we get cooked virtually every time it rains or snows. The levels are increasing. In the beginning the levels were roughly doubling every 2 weeks. Since the start of the summer the levels stabilized to 3500-5000 cpm per sq. meter every time it rained. But today, yikes! 20 000cpm!
Luckily the decay rate is short and I never detect any residual radiation in the wipes after a day or so. That's what is saving us from being cooked well done.
I've noticed that the worse the storm, the more extreme the weather, the higher the counts, leading me to think that this is done on purpose:
From the reasearch I did, Radon is a heavy gas that is 8 times as heavy as air, so it hugs the ground, aprox. 100 meters or less is where it tends to collect. So if this is ground Radon why does the levels increase if it rains all day?
Wouldn't it wash out of the air after 15 minutes or so and then the levels should drop?
(My area is not known for Radon collecting in basements).
I matched the highest counts with days where the storm clouds were the tallest in the troposphere. This is much too high for Radon to collect.
Is it being pumped there on purpose? Would Radon daughters charge up and seed rain and snowflakes? Dunno?
Is it coming from space? Radon has a very short half life of 8 days, I don't think it would be floating around in space and stay radioactive for billions of years waiting for the earth's gravity to pick it up...
Could it be traveling from Fukushima via the jet stream? It doesn't make sense, as the Radon gas is 8 times as heavy as air.
Could it be traveling from Fukushima via ground winds? Maybe?
Could it be Radon coming from the tailings from the Uranium mines and washing out by the rain? At these levels? Yikes we need to shut down all the mines and cover up the tailings quick!
Has anyone any insight on this? I know what I'm measuring it's real, it's no trick and the radioactivity falling in my area is real... The question is where is it from?
Thanks for your time!
:o)
Electrosyl
Part 3
Hi all!
This is part 3 of my measurements of the radioactivity falling on the north of GTA (Greater Toronto Area), Canada on August 14th 2011 at 17h55.
Aprox. 1 square meter of smooth surface wiped (glass, solar panels).
Measured with a Eberline HP-260 Pancake Probe and with a Eberline E-140 counter. (Sorry for the crappy video quality, I was using my cell phone camera, I guess it's alright for a first upload...)
I measured 20 000 cpm per square meter of wipe today!!! This is the all time record since I have been taking measurements since March 14th 2011 . Previous record was 10 000cpm (counts per minute).
One panel I always keep clean, but the other panels collected quite a bit of dirt which seems to increase the radioactivity collection ability. The panels were not radioactive before it rained.
The decay rate is typically 33min - 45minutes. This matches Radon decay daughter products being selectively washed out of the atmosphere, (hence the variable decay rate.)
Where is it from? Is it normal? Is it from Fukushima? Is the NWO spiking the clouds with radioactive isotopes for weather modification? Dunno. I all know, is we get cooked virtually every time it rains or snows. The levels are increasing. In the beginning the levels were roughly doubling every 2 weeks. Since the start of the summer the levels stabilized to 3500-5000 cpm per sq. meter every time it rained. But today, yikes! 20 000cpm!
Luckily the decay rate is short and I never detect any residual radiation in the wipes after a day or so. That's what is saving us from being cooked well done.
I've noticed that the worse the storm, the more extreme the weather, the higher the counts, leading me to think that this is done on purpose:
From the reasearch I did, Radon is a heavy gas that is 8 times as heavy as air, so it hugs the ground, aprox. 100 meters or less is where it tends to collect. So if this is ground Radon why does the levels increase if it rains all day?
Wouldn't it wash out of the air after 15 minutes or so and then the levels should drop?
(My area is not known for Radon collecting in basements).
I matched the highest counts with days where the storm clouds were the tallest in the troposphere. This is much too high for Radon to collect.
Is it being pumped there on purpose? Would Radon daughters charge up and seed rain and snowflakes? Dunno?
Is it coming from space? Radon has a very short half life of 8 days, I don't think it would be floating around in space and stay radioactive for billions of years waiting for the earth's gravity to pick it up...
Could it be traveling from Fukushima via the jet stream? It doesn't make sense, as the Radon gas is 8 times as heavy as air.
Could it be traveling from Fukushima via ground winds? Maybe?
Could it be Radon coming from the tailings from the Uranium mines and washing out by the rain? At these levels? Yikes we need to shut down all the mines and cover up the tailings quick!
Has anyone any insight on this? I know what I'm measuring it's real, it's no trick and the radioactivity falling in my area is real... The question is where is it from?
Thanks for your time!
Electrosyl
Artistic Remix from connectingdots1 YouTube channel
There is no Geiger counter in the facility. They hang a sheet of paper to show “the current” radiation level ,which is hand writing,at cafeteria,but it was still “April”.(He went there in August.)
