7/7/2011 Kyushu Electric president to resign over pro-nuke e-mails

Source: Asahi.com
Date: 7/8/2011 JST

Toshio Manabe, president of Kyushu  Electric Power Co., talks to reporters at a news conference July 6. (Wataru Sekita)

Toshio Manabe, president of Kyushu Electric Power Co., said July 7 that he intends to resign after the utility was found to have instructed employees to manipulate public opinion on nuclear power. Manabe said he will take responsibility for instructing employees to send "pro-nuclear power" e-mails to organizers of a public hearing broadcast on television in late June. The program was sponsored by the central government to solicit opinions from residents of Saga Prefecture on a proposal to restart two reactors at Kyushu Electric's Genkai nuclear power plant in Saga Prefecture. According to Kyushu Electric, a senior company official on June 22 sent e-mails to employees and employees of subsidiaries instructing them to send messages to the program with a "pro-restarting" point of view. The e-mails were sent under the company name.

An e-mail instructing Kyushu Electric Co. and its subsidiary employees to send pro-nuclear reactor opinions to a television program (The Asahi Shimbun)

The e-mailed instructions also stated that e-mails to the program should be sent from personal accounts, not the company's, apparently to hide the fact that the senders were connected to Kyushu Electric. Manabe said he will make a final decision next week after discussing the matter with Shingo Matsuo, company chairman. ... Read full article here

7/7/2011 (Map) 5.6 Magnitude Japan Honshu Earthquake

Date: 7/7/2011 7:18 PM CST

Earthquake of 5.6 magnitude off Honshu, Japan (orange dot in map below) strikes, 14.5 miles from Fukushima II (Daini) and 21 miles from Fukushima I (Daiichi) nuclear power plants.

USGS Shake Map

According to the earthquake shake map above from the USGS the earthquake was not very serious and the AP confirms, there was no reported damage done:

...
No immediate damage or casualties were reported from the quake that struck at 3:35 a.m. Friday (1835 GMT Thursday), the USGS said. No tsunami watch was immediately issued.

The epicenter of the quake was some 51 miles (83 kilometers) southeast of Fukushima, in Honshu, Japan, the USGS said. The quake was centered some 28 miles (45 kilometers deep, the agency said.
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7/7/2011 Tepco temporarily halts cooling at Fukushima Daini

Source: MarketWatch
Date: July 7, 2011, 11:11 a.m. EDT

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (9501.TO) said Thursday that it stopped the cooling system for a reactor at the Fukushima Daini power plant in Fukushima Prefecture for three and a half hours due to an electrical system problem, Kyodo News reported.

Cooling operations were suspended for the No. 1 reactor and an adjacent pool for spent nuclear fuel from around 5:30 p.m. to shortly past 9 p.m. while the operator, known as TEPCO, looked into why sparks came from a power panel at a building adjacent to that housing the reactor.

Temperatures for the reactor and the fuel storage pool are believed to have risen slightly from about 25 C to 35 C and from 26 C to 27 C, respectively, during the suspension.

The reactor and the pool must be kept cooled because nuclear fuel inside them emits heat as it decays, even though the reactor has gone offline and has been brought into a stable condition called 'cold shutdown' following the March earthquake and tsunami.

The other three reactors at the Fukushima Daini plant, located to the south of the crisis-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex, have also been in cold shutdown-mode since the disasters.

A plant worker found sparks coming out of a power panel in the basement of the No. 1 reactor's adjoining facility shortly after 2 p.m., prompting the company to cut power to the facility so that it could be inspected, TEPCO said.

The reactor has two sets of cooling systems for sustaining cold shutdown, but one of them has remained crippled since the tsunami in March.

7/7/2011 Can a weakened nuclear industry survive its deadly repeating history?

Source: Japan Today
Date: Jul. 07, 2011 - 06:58AM JST
by: Lucas Whitefield Hixson

The nuclear industry is a global affair, especially when something goes wrong, requiring transparency to ensure the safety of children and families around the world. History has shown that significant releases of radiation that effect the environment and population can be released long before any hope of containment or control can be expected. Nuclear disasters can not only threaten the health of first responders, but also cripple critical systems that allow complex situations to be analyzed and reported effectively.
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