Source: The Japan Times
Date: Friday, June 10, 2011 JST
by: JUN HONGO
The government should consider evacuating children and pregnant women from a wider area around the Fukushima No. 1 power plant because radiation levels remain high even outside the 20-km no-go zone, Kumi Naidoo, executive director of Greenpeace International, said Thursday in Tokyo.
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Provide radiation related news regarding the Japan Fukushima nuclear plant disaster and global radiation levels and environmental contamination.
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Thursday, June 9, 2011
6/9/2011 | Japan Confirms Nuclear Fuel Has Melted Through The Base Of The Fukushima Plant
Source: Alexander Higgins Blog
Date: June 9, 2011 at 4:52 pm
by: Alexander Higgins
The nuclear fuel in three of the reactors at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant has melted through the base of the pressure vessels and is pooling in the outer containment vessels, according to a report by the Japanese government.
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Date: June 9, 2011 at 4:52 pm
by: Alexander Higgins
The nuclear fuel in three of the reactors at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant has melted through the base of the pressure vessels and is pooling in the outer containment vessels, according to a report by the Japanese government.
...
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6/9/2011 | Japan's green tea contaminated with radiation
Source: NEWSCORE via New York Post
Date: 2:21 PM, June 9, 2011
TOKYO -- Japanese green tea, esteemed around the world for its purity and health-enhancing properties, has become contaminated with radiation, as fallout from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant continues to blight Japan's agricultural heartlands, authorities revealed Thursday.
Authorities admitted for the first time that green tea from Japan's biggest tea-growing area, the Shizuoka prefecture, contains radiation higher than the officially-permitted level.
The contamination has opened a furious argument among local and national officials about how to measure the radiation, and what constitutes a safe level of contamination.
Dried leaves from the year's first harvest in the Honyama area of Shizuoka were found to contain radioactive cesium at a level of 679 becquerels per kilogram, above the permitted maximum of 500 becquerels. But the discovery was made by chance, and the authorities admit that earlier consignments, which were not examined and have gone to the market, may have also been contaminated.
Limits on the sale of tea from areas closer to Fukushima have been put in place, but Shizuoka is to green tea what the Champagne region of France is to sparkling wine, and the effect of the news will be devastating.
Japan produced 95,000 tons (86,000 tonnes) of dried tea in 2009, and 42 percent of that was from Shizuoka. The prefecture, supported by the ministry of agriculture, has insisted on carrying out radiation measurements in such a way as to minimize the suggestion that its precious product is dangerous.
The problem is that, unlike other vegetables, tea leaves are processed before going on sale and are not consumed directly. When fresh leaves are dried, the removal of water concentrates the radioactive elements to five times the former level.
But when they are infused in a tea pot the amount of radiation in the resulting brew is between 30 and 45 times less, according to the agriculture ministry.
The Shizuoka government wants the 500 becquerels limit to apply to the less intensely radioactive fresh leaves. But the health ministry argues that consumers might swallow dried leaves in a cup of tea, as well as in products derived from tea, such as green tea ice cream, and that the 500-becquerel limit for fresh vegetables must also apply to tea.
The high reading was discovered not by the tea grower or the local government, but by a mail order tea company in Tokyo that carried out its own measurements.
Date: 2:21 PM, June 9, 2011
TOKYO -- Japanese green tea, esteemed around the world for its purity and health-enhancing properties, has become contaminated with radiation, as fallout from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant continues to blight Japan's agricultural heartlands, authorities revealed Thursday.
Authorities admitted for the first time that green tea from Japan's biggest tea-growing area, the Shizuoka prefecture, contains radiation higher than the officially-permitted level.
The contamination has opened a furious argument among local and national officials about how to measure the radiation, and what constitutes a safe level of contamination.
Dried leaves from the year's first harvest in the Honyama area of Shizuoka were found to contain radioactive cesium at a level of 679 becquerels per kilogram, above the permitted maximum of 500 becquerels. But the discovery was made by chance, and the authorities admit that earlier consignments, which were not examined and have gone to the market, may have also been contaminated.
Limits on the sale of tea from areas closer to Fukushima have been put in place, but Shizuoka is to green tea what the Champagne region of France is to sparkling wine, and the effect of the news will be devastating.
Japan produced 95,000 tons (86,000 tonnes) of dried tea in 2009, and 42 percent of that was from Shizuoka. The prefecture, supported by the ministry of agriculture, has insisted on carrying out radiation measurements in such a way as to minimize the suggestion that its precious product is dangerous.
The problem is that, unlike other vegetables, tea leaves are processed before going on sale and are not consumed directly. When fresh leaves are dried, the removal of water concentrates the radioactive elements to five times the former level.
But when they are infused in a tea pot the amount of radiation in the resulting brew is between 30 and 45 times less, according to the agriculture ministry.
The Shizuoka government wants the 500 becquerels limit to apply to the less intensely radioactive fresh leaves. But the health ministry argues that consumers might swallow dried leaves in a cup of tea, as well as in products derived from tea, such as green tea ice cream, and that the 500-becquerel limit for fresh vegetables must also apply to tea.
The high reading was discovered not by the tea grower or the local government, but by a mail order tea company in Tokyo that carried out its own measurements.
6/9/2011 | Swiss parliament cements decision to go non-nuclear in landslide vote, paving the way for renewables
Source: Bellona
Date: 6/9/2011
by: Charles Digges
Lawmakers in Switzerland’s lower house of parliament Wednesday cemented in a landslide vote plans by the government to phase out use of all five of the country’s nuclear reactors by 2034, making it Europe’s second country to abandon nuclear power in favor of renewable energy in the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi crisis.
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Date: 6/9/2011
by: Charles Digges
Lawmakers in Switzerland’s lower house of parliament Wednesday cemented in a landslide vote plans by the government to phase out use of all five of the country’s nuclear reactors by 2034, making it Europe’s second country to abandon nuclear power in favor of renewable energy in the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi crisis.
...
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6/8/2011 | Japan: Land Of The Rising Sun And The Irradiated Ground
Source: ZeroHedge
Date: 6/8/2011
Perhaps the reason why so far nobody has been too concerned about the radiation levels in and around Tokyo, some 140 miles southwest of Fukushima, be that everyone is looking for radiation in all the wrong places? As the following very disturbing video demonstrates, a quick trip down the street with your personal Geiger counter indicates, the radiation gradient between the air and the ground is orders of magnitude. It is unclear if the ground is such a more generous source of radiation due to radioactive rains seeping into the ground, due to irradiated water in the subsoil, or for some other reason. What is pretty certain, is that unless Japanese citizens have learned to fly and avoid the ground altogether, by walking each and every day, they absorb substantial abnormal amounts of radiation. How soon before we transition from videos of earless mutant bunnies to those of something far more tragic?
Date: 6/8/2011
Perhaps the reason why so far nobody has been too concerned about the radiation levels in and around Tokyo, some 140 miles southwest of Fukushima, be that everyone is looking for radiation in all the wrong places? As the following very disturbing video demonstrates, a quick trip down the street with your personal Geiger counter indicates, the radiation gradient between the air and the ground is orders of magnitude. It is unclear if the ground is such a more generous source of radiation due to radioactive rains seeping into the ground, due to irradiated water in the subsoil, or for some other reason. What is pretty certain, is that unless Japanese citizens have learned to fly and avoid the ground altogether, by walking each and every day, they absorb substantial abnormal amounts of radiation. How soon before we transition from videos of earless mutant bunnies to those of something far more tragic?
6/9/2011 | Radioactive strontium detected 62 km from Fukushima No. 1 plant
Source: The Japan Times
Date: Thursday, June 9, 2011
Kyodo
WIDEN, Evac Zone: Greenpeace — Minute amounts of radioactive strontium have been detected in soil at 11 locations in Fukushima Prefecture, including the city of Fukushima 62 km from the crippled nuclear power plant, according to the science ministry.
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Date: Thursday, June 9, 2011
Kyodo
WIDEN, Evac Zone: Greenpeace — Minute amounts of radioactive strontium have been detected in soil at 11 locations in Fukushima Prefecture, including the city of Fukushima 62 km from the crippled nuclear power plant, according to the science ministry.
...
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6/9/2011 | Analysis: Risks Too Great for Full Japan Nuclear Shutdown
Source: Reuters via Scientific American
Date: June 9, 2011
by: Chikako Mogi
Economic risks are too high for Japan to pull the plug on its 54 nuclear plants next year despite intense public pressure on Tokyo to cut reliance on atomic power in favor of other clean energy sources.
...
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Date: June 9, 2011
by: Chikako Mogi
Economic risks are too high for Japan to pull the plug on its 54 nuclear plants next year despite intense public pressure on Tokyo to cut reliance on atomic power in favor of other clean energy sources.
...
Read full article here
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