6/22/2011 | Newspaper Reports Massive Fukushima Nuclear Radiation Testing Blackout In Canda

Source: Alexander Higgins Blog
Date: June 22, 2011 at 11:33 am

Following recent reports of radiation saturation doubling private companies, government agencies and universities in Canada are refusing to get involved in Fukushima nuclear radiation fallout testing at any level.
...
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6/22/2011 | Update on Fort Calhoun and Cooper nuclear power plants from an NRC perspective

Source: NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission)
Date: 6/22/2011

This is the official NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) news release as of today:
NRC TRACKING FLOODING AT TWO NEBRASKA NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS_11-030.iv
Download document from NRC site
Check left side bar for locations of the NRC Preliminary Event Notifications and actual Event Notification reports.

6/21/2011 | Fukushima Nuclear Plant Remains 'Ticking Time Bomb' After Japan Disaster: Michio Kaku, Theoretical Physicist

Source: CNN (video), comments are by me
Date: 6/21/2011 video date

Theoretical physicist Dr. Michio Kaku makes a return appearance on CNN.
Dr. Kaku makes many important statements about the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident:

1. The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant still remains in danger, especially since the estimated (more than) 110 tons of radioactive water on site only has perhaps a week's worth of storage capacity before it is forced to be released (to the sea).
2. The radiation released by Fukushima Daiichi is as much as Chernobyl (many would argue more).
3. This is the worst industrial accident in all history and will take 50-100 years to clean up.
4. 16 miles is not enough of an evacuation area, as radiation hot spots have been found much further out.
5. 34,000 kindergarten students have been given radiation badges (personal dosimeters) to wear to school.
6. TEPCO lied to cover up the severity of the accident and withheld information.
7. Miniscule amounts of radioactive iodine are showing up in milk in New York.

6/20/2011 | Fukushima Crisis Gives GE, BYD Edge in Energy-Efficient Devices

Source: Bloomberg
Date: Jun 20, 2011 8:18 PM CT
by: Mariko Yasu and Maki Shirak

The video screen at the Marunouchi subway entrance in Tokyo Station asks passing commuters to “Please Help Us Save Energy,” a plea repeated throughout Japan in television advertisements warning of summer power shortages.
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6/20/2011 | Only a few more days of storage capacity left at Fukushima Daiichi for radioactive water

Date: 6/20/2011
by: Jason Chan

TEPCO is still struggling against time to get their on-site Frankenstein-like radioactive water treatment system up and running. According to NHK World, there are only "a few days" of radioactive water storage capacity left (the NHK article is dated Tuesday, June 21, 2011 05:11 +0900 JST).  It is estimated that more than 100,000 tons of radioactive water is currently pooled at the Fukushima Daiichi complex.  If the radioactive water is not able to be decontaminated at a rate at least equal to the amount of radioactive water produced each day (500 tons/day per JAIF), the overflow would go to the sea.

The ad hoc TEPCO water treatment system has been cobbled together from other systems made by French, American and Japanese companies. Per blogger EX-SKF:

...
To review the whole [radioactive water treatment] process, the water first goes to Toshiba's oil separation system. Then it goes to [America's] Kurion's system for oil/technetium removal, then cesium removal, then iodine removal. Then it goes to [France's] Areva's system for further decontamination, and finally arrives at Hitachi's desalination system. [1]

...

The TEPCO radioactive water treatment system was successfully started on Friday, June 17, 2011 at 8 PM EST and then stopped on Saturday, June 18, 2011 at 12:54 AM EST.  It took only 5 hours before a component in Kurion, Inc.'s (the U.S. company) system, which uses zeolite to filter out radioactive cesium, reached it's radiation saturation limit.  Under normal circumstances, replacements to this component do not need to be made for about 30 days.

According to EX-SKF TEPCO is addressing the issue by re-organizing the filtration process across all of the various components as well as restricting the flow rate of radioactive water coming in to the system to reduce the radiation exposure to the Kurion system component(s). [1]

References:
[1] Contaminated Water Processing at #Fukushima: TEPCO Says Water Is "Hot", But The System Can Handle It, EX-SKF blog

6/19/2011 | Fukushima workers speak out

Source: Al Jazeera
Date: 6/19/2011 upload date
by: Marga Ortigas reports

The nuclear plant at Japan's Fukushima may be leaking radiation, but people are still going there daily to look for employment where about 2,200 of the 2,500 working there are subcontractors.

In the last three months, at least eight workers have been exposed to high levels of radiation and removed from duty but this has not deterred others.

It's a vocation with little job security, few benefits and no insurance for injuries or radiation poisoning but many are still lining up.