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@lilly there are several different meat markets here. There is ground beef, which is essentially mystery meat. And there is wagyu beef, known around the world as Kobe beef. This can come from anywhere in Japan and refers to how the cattle are treated. This beef is very marbled with fat, and is therefore very tender. So Japanese produced beef is typically either very pedestrian or very high end. A good deal of the beef here is Australian, which used to be cheaper but is now very expensive and hard to find. US beef was banned here, and then had limited distribution. This crisis will surely open the doors to more beef imports. Japanese people tend to eat beef in small portions, and therefore is often of the high grade Japanese type. Recently I have seen lots of beef in the stores marked as from Hokkaido, which is not typical and I suspect it is Tohoku beef.

@Jo we should keep an eye on that. Majj and some of the others on Organize are knowledgeable on how to track typhoons. There is a site that has graphics of the projections they use.

@lilly also restaurants specialize in specific kinds of meat. So there are beef restaurants.

Off to bed folks. Mata.

@bo nite bo

Quake damage to turbine blades found at Tokai

Damage to turbine blades, apparently caused by the March 11th earthquake, has been found at a nuclear power plant in Ibaraki Prefecture, eastern Japan.

The Tokai Daini plant, about 100 kilometers north of Tokyo, automatically shut down in the quake. The operator of the plant, Japan Atomic Power Company, has been checking the plant closely since May in a regular checkup scheduled to last 6 months.

It says it discovered friction marks on the blades and other parts of the reactor's turbines.

The company believes the damage was caused by the March 11 quake as similar marring had been reported in another plant in Niigata Prefecture in the wake of an earthquake in 2007.

The utility says some parts were also found missing from a device that injects coolant into the reactor. It also discovered cracks in equipment attached to the upper parts of the reactor.

It says it is investigating whether those defects were also caused by the March quake.

In the giant quake, the Tokai Daini plant lost its outside power sources, and had to rely on emergency generators until regular power returned.

Earlier this month the government nuclear safety body found the level of quake-resistance of the electrical equipment at the plant was below the standard set by power companies.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011 22:26 +0900 (JST)
www3.nhk.or.jp

Gov't nuclear panel noted but downplayed risk of power loss at plants

TOKYO, July 13, Kyodo

Experts in a government commission overseeing the safety of nuclear power generation noted in the early 1990s the possibility of fatal damage to nuclear power plants resulting from loss of all alternating-current sources for long periods, as in the case of the Fukushima Daiichi plant, but played down the risk in view of Japan's advanced power source technology, commission sources said Wednesday.

A panel of five experts in the Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan held 12 meetings between October 1991 and June 1993 to study cases related to the loss of power sources at nuclear power plants at home and abroad, according to the commission.

Representatives from Tokyo Electric Power Co. and Kansai Electric Power Co. participated in the study project. english.kyodonews.jp

Fukushima plant site originally was a hill safe from tsunami search.japantimes.co.jp "Tepco, ... reduced the bluff by some 25 meters and erected the plant on artificially prepared ground only 10 meters above sea level....Tepco decided to build the plant on low ground based on a cost-benefit calculation of the operating costs of the seawater pumps, according to two research papers separately written by senior Tepco engineers in the 1960s....If the seawater pumps were placed on high ground, their operating costs would be accordingly higher."

@elainekirk the seed thing is something the sunflower remediation people may not have thought of. Would the seeds of those sunflowers accumulate cesium or is it just stored in the stalks and roots? We should find out about this as the seeds could end up as a big source of bird exposure if the seeds house large quantities. From what I have read talked about stalks storing it so it could end up a non-issue.

from the ball team article "At the opening ceremony, and complained of symptoms of heat stroke are 18 players, one person was transported to the hospital."


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