7/17/2011 Women's World Cup was more than a game for Japan

Source: Los Angeles Times
Date: July 18, 2011
by: Kenji Hall and John M. Glionna

A joyful, nearly disbelieving Tokyo bursts into celebration over the soccer victory, a symbol of hope and resilience for the earthquake-devastated country.

Soccer fans celebrate on the street in Tokyo after Japan's Women's World
Cup victory. (Kim Kyung-hoon / Reuters / July 18, 2011)

Reporting from Tokyo and Seoul—As Japan's Saki Kumagai prepared for her decisive penalty kick in the shootout that ended Sunday's Women's World Cup final, a wounded nation held its breath.

For Japan, this was more than a soccer game. It was an opportunity to prove on a global stage that a country devastated four months ago by a killer earthquake, tsunami and nuclear catastrophe still possessed the heart and soul of a fierce competitor.
...
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Editor's Note: Video below is from Al Jazeera

Japan become the first Asian nation to win the women's World Cup after a thrilling final against the USA in Frankfurt.

Al Jazeera's Nick Spicer has this report from the German city of Frankfurt.

7/14/2011 Illegal immigrant working inside nuke plant arrested

Source: KVOA.com News 4 Tucson (NBC affiliate)
Date: Jul 14, 2011 3:28 PM

PHOENIX - Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's deputies arrested an illegal immigrant working inside the Palo Verde Nuclear Plant, the nation's largest nuclear plant and one of the most closely monitored in the country.
...
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Editor's Note: Map shows only nuclear reactors in the U.S. which have had recent unusual activity or known safety problems (that I know of).

View Live Ustream Radiation Detectors in a larger map

7/15/2011 Sharapova, Wozniacki, Li Na to Help Japanese Disaster Victims

Source: 10sBalls.com
Date: 15th July 2011
by: Erin Frauenhofer



Caroline Wozniacki, Maria ShaCaroline Wozniacki, Maria Sharapova, and Li Na will soon begin working to help tsunami and earthquake victims in Japan. The three tennis talents will participate in charity events before headlining the Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo in September.
...
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7/15/2011 Japan Geiger Counter Demand Spurs "Grey Market"

Source: Bloomberg
Date: 7/15/2011


July 15 (Bloomberg) -- Bloomberg's Margaret Conley reports on demand for Geiger counters, also known as dosimeters, since the Fukushima nuclear reactor meltdown in Japan in March. Li Jinglei, chairman of Shanghai Ergonomics Detecting Instrument Co., a maker of the devices, said Japanese demand has spurred a grey market of "illegal" products that use faulty parts and shoddy designs or are fake. (Source: Bloomberg)

Editor's Note
The Geiger counter shown in the video is a DP802i. A review of the device can be found at the following website: http://blog.gslab.net/geigercounter-battle/dp802i/.

7/15/2011 New U.S. Regulations Proposed in Response to Fukushima

Source: MIT Technology Review
Date: 7/15/2011
by: Kevin Bullis

A task force calls for safety upgrades, but the nuclear industry worries about their cost.
Shortly after the nuclear disaster at power plants in Fukushima, Japan, the head of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said that U.S. reactors are safe. Now a Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) task force created in response to the disaster is recommending extensive safety upgrades to deal with problems like the ones seen in Japan, although it also said that nuclear plants pose "no imminent risk."

One of the biggest problems at Fukushima was extended loss of power at the plant that shut down cooling systems, requiring plant operators to take extreme measures such as pumping seawater directly into the reactor, which in turn resulted in the release of radioactive seawater into the environment.
...
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7/16/2011 Japan Operator Shutting Down Nuclear Reactor After Malfunction

Source: New York Times
Date: 7/16/2011
by: Hiroko Tabuchi

TOKYO — Japan’s second-largest nuclear operator said Saturday that it was manually shutting down a reactor in central Japan after a technical malfunction.

No radiation had leaked from the No. 1 Reactor at the Oi Nuclear Power Plant, on the Japan Sea coast, about 250 miles west of Tokyo, said Yoshihiko Kondo, a spokesman for the plant’s operator, Kansai Electric Power.

Mr. Kondo said that a loss of pressure had been detected late Friday in an accumulator tank needed to cool the reactor core in an emergency, forcing the utility to shut down the reactor. Workers will begin the shutdown at 1 p.m. Saturday in Japan, and shutdown will be complete by 9 p.m., he said.

The shutdown at Oi just four months after the devastating accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant comes as a blow to an industry struggling to regain public confidence. It also worsens an electricity shortage that has forced several utilities in Japan to require companies to reduce their use by at least 15 percent.

Only 19 of Japan’s 54 nuclear reactors are operating, because units shut down for regular maintenance have not been given permission by local governments to restart after the disaster at Fukushima, operated by Japan’s largest nuclear operator, Tokyo Electric Power. In the meantime, more reactors have been closing for scheduled maintenance, reducing the number in service across the country.

The 1.17-million-kilowatt Oi No. 1 Reactor, built in 1979, had been in the last stages of a trial run at full output after undergoing scheduled maintenance this year. At Kansai Electric, only four of its 11 reactors are now operating.

Editor's Note: Oi Nuclear Power Plant shown in map below

View Live Ustream Radiation Detectors in a larger map

7/12/2011 "During April, The People In Seattle Could Have Just As Easily Been In Tokyo For The Amount Of Hot Particles That Were There"

Source: Washington's Blog
Date: 7/12/2011

Nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen said recently:

During April, the people in Seattle could have just as easily been in Tokyo for the amount of hot particles that were there.

(For background on "hot particles", see this and this.)

Of course, radiation monitoring in Seattle may be kept secret. As that Washington Department of Health notes:

A helicopter flying over some urban areas of King and Pierce counties will gather radiological readings July 11-28, 2011. [Seattle is in King County.] The U.S. Department of Energy’s Remote Sensing Laboratory Aerial Measurement System will collect baseline levels of radioactive materials.
**
Some of the data may be withheld for national security purposes.

Indeed, the EPA has drastically reduced its radiation reporting to the public (which was never great), and has tried to raise acceptable radiation standards.

But isn't the amount of radiation Seattle residents are being exposed to safe? No, say many top experts. See this, this, this, this, this and this.

As David J. Brenner, a professor of radiation biophysics and the director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University Medical Center, wrote recently in The Bulletin of The Atomic Scientists:

Should this worry us? We know that the extra individual cancer risks from this long-term exposure will be very small indeed. Most of us have about a 40 percent chance of getting cancer at some point in our lives, and the radiation dose from the extra radioactive cesium in the food supply will not significantly increase our individual cancer risks.
But there’s another way we can and should think about the risk: not from the perspective of individuals, but from the perspective of the entire population. A tiny extra risk to a few people is one thing. But here we have a potential tiny extra risk to millions or even billions of people. Think of buying a lottery ticket — just like the millions of other people who buy a ticket, your chances of winning are miniscule. Yet among these millions of lottery players, a few people will certainly win; we just can’t predict who they will be. Likewise, will there be some extra cancers among the very large numbers of people exposed to extremely small radiation risks? It’s likely, but we really don’t know for sure.

Hat tip: ENE News and Forbes' Jeff McMahon, two of the best energy-related news sources on the web.

7/14/2011 Los Alamos National Lab prepares for monsoon flash flooding

Date: 7/14/2011

Los Alamos National Lab, America's premier nuclear weapons research and development facility/factory, seemed to weather the Las Conchas wildfire without a major nuclear incident (e.g. the potential threat of fire releasing dangerous levels of radiation in to the air from various Material Disposal Areas or lab facilities). A new threat exists now, but this time from flash floods potentially washing contaminated soil in to the Rio Grande river, the source of drinking water for many New Mexico communities including the capital Sante Fe. [1] According to a July 11, 2011 article by Reuters:

...
The soil in the canyons above Los Alamos National Laboratory, the linchpin of American's nuclear weapons industry, contains materials with trace amounts of radiation and hazardous chemicals such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) that were dumped there decades ago, said Fred deSousa, spokesman for the lab's environmental control division.

Over the weekend, about 1,200 cubic yards of contaminated soil was removed primarily from two canyons -- Los Alamos and Pajarito -- that run through lab property, deSousa said.

The erosion control effort, which included the installation of 600 feet of water diversion barriers, will continue this week, he said.[1]
...

In a recent PressTV interview (below), Willem Malten of the Los Alamos Study Group states "there is a frantic community effort under way with mainly Native Americans sandbagging their own homelands while the [The Los Alamos National] Laboratory just removed 12,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil from the canyons."

PressTV: 'Monsoon rain could flood Los Alamos with contaminants'


Some key points were raised in the interview. Approximately 4 minutes in to the interview Malten states that a year long Associated Press investigation has found that the NRC (Nuclear Regulator Commission) has allowed aging nuclear power plants to run beyond their natural lifespan by relaxing previously set safety standards. Also of note is the segment of the interview starting at 7 minutes 7 seconds. Here Malten says that there has been "too cozy of a relationship between the nuclear industry, regulators and politicians for too long." The Obama administration received $210,000 in campaign contributions from the nuclear industry according to Malten.

Sources:
[1] Contaminated soil a concern at Los Alamos lab, Reuters
[2] 'Monsoon rain could flood Los Alamos with contaminants', PressTV

7/13/2011 Missouri River Flood: Alert Lifted at Cooper Nuclear Power Plant

Source: Gather News (gather.com)
Date: July 13, 2011 07:45 PM EDT
by: Angela Tague

On July 12, the Nebraska Public Power District lifted the "notification of unusual event" put in place at the Cooper Nuclear Station south of Omaha, Nebr. just last month. The Missouri River flood waters are finally starting to recede, causing plant workers to breathe a bit easier this week.
...
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Editor's Note: Here is the current action plan at Cooper Nuclear Station.

7/14/2011 Typhoon Ma-On Targeting Japan

Source: AccuWeather.com
Date: Jul 14, 2011; 11:20 AM ET
by: Jim Andrews, Senior Meteorologist

A powerful typhoon is on track to strike mainland Japan early next week.
...
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DHS's First Patent: A Citizen's Dosimeter!

Source: Department of Homeland Security (dhs.gov)
Date: June 27, 2011

It fits in your wallet and can save your life.

Adam Hutter, Director of NUSTL, presents Cecilia Murtagh (center) and Gladys Klemic with plaques commemorating DHS’s first patent. Not pictured: co-investigator Paul Bailey, now at the University of Maryland. (Jenny May)

No matter how many plastic cards currently crowd your wallet, one day you may wish to make room for one more. The Department of Homeland Security(DHS)’s Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) has developed a miniaturized version of a dosimeter, a portable device used for measuring exposure to ionizing radiation, which can provide life-saving early detection in the unlikely event of a nuclear accident or dirty bomb.
...
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7/13/2011 Fukushima workers brave radiation and heat for £80 a day

Source: UK Guardian
Date: Wednesday 13 July 2011 19.20 BST

Fears grow for inexperienced contractors working in Japanese heatwave to bring stricken nuclear reactors under control


Workers at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Photograph: Ho/AFP/Getty Images

Hundreds of inexperienced contractors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant are working in searing heat and high radiation levels for as little as 10,000 yen (£80) a day.
...
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