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Hi folks.

@Thunder I am just trying to find an article I saw

@Thunder mdn.mainichi.jp

@Thunder it does say two yrs though the mainichi link says they aren't actually intending to build it

www.tepco.co.jp
location map of centralised radiation waste treatment facility

Nuclear agency asked Shikoku Electric to send employees to symposium

TOKYO, Aug. 2, Kyodo

A former senior official of the Japanese government's nuclear safety agency on Tuesday acknowledged that the agency asked Shikoku Electric Power Co., one of the country's 10 regional power companies, to mobilize its employees for a government-sponsored symposium on nuclear energy in June 2006.

The official who headed the office of nuclear safety public relations at the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, told Kyodo News that he asked senior officials of Shikoku Electric to make its employees attend the symposium.

The official said he called in senior officials of Shokoku Electric's Tokyo branch to his office prior to the symposium and asked them to make employees attend the symposium and actively express their opinions.
english.kyodonews.jp

Japan's ban on cattle shipments expands to Tochigi Pref.

TOKYO, Aug. 2, Kyodo

Japan's government on Tuesday expanded its ban on cattle shipments to Tochigi Prefecture as radiation continues to spew from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said at a news conference that the decision was made after some cattle raised in the prefecture were found to be contaminated with radioactive cesium.

Tochigi is the fourth prefecture, after Fukushima, Miyagi and Iwate, that has been ordered by the central government to suspend all beef cattle shipments. english.kyodonews.jp

Hiroshima mayor to call for energy review

Hiroshima's mayor will call on the Japanese government to review its energy policy in an annual peace declaration on August 6th, the day the city was hit by a US atomic bomb in 1945.

At a news conference on Tuesday, Mayor Kazumi Matsui said Japanese people have lost their trust in nuclear power amid the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi plant.

But the mayor said people are divided over whether to totally scrap nuclear power generation. He said it will be best for him to describe the situation realistically in the declaration.

The mayor of the other atom-bombed city, Nagasaki, already disclosed last month that he would urge the government to shift away from nuclear energy to safer sources in his annual peace declaration on August 9th.

Tuesday, August 02, 2011 14:10 +0900 (JST)
www3.nhk.or.jp

TEPCO to check plant radiation levels carefully

The operator of the crippled Fukushima nuclear complex is searching for radioactive hotspots after finding record high radiation near an exhaust pipe at the plant.

Tokyo Electric Power said on Monday that over 10,000 millisieverts per hour had been detected at the bottom of the exhaust pipe in between reactor buildings No.1 and No.2. That's the highest level detected since March when the quake and tsunami disabled the plant.

A photo released on Tuesday shows workers taking measurements with a detector attached to the tip of a 3-meter-long arm. The level of radiation where the workers stood reportedly reached 40 millisieverts per hour.

TEPCO says the exhaust pipe was used when radioactive air was vented from the No.1 reactor's containment vessel one day after the March 11th disaster.

The company subsequently revealed that the reactor had suffered a nuclear fuel meltdown. The utility believes highly radioactive substances that leaked from the container flowed into the pipe and accumulated inside.

The utility has declared the area off-limits, and is planning to seal it off with mats stuffed with lead.
It will also carefully check whether there are other highly contaminated sites within the premises that may hamper cleanup work.

Tuesday, August 02, 2011 12:34 +0900 (JST)
www3.nhk.or.jp

@Edano @hudebnik g'morning

@hudebnik it is not logical. did dean have an idea ?

Nuclear agency's meddling revealed again

Another case of questionable conduct by Japan's nuclear regulator has come to light. A former official of the nuclear safety agency has admitted asking a regional utility to mobilize its people for a government symposium on nuclear power 5 years ago.

One of the agency's former section chiefs told NHK that he made the request to an executive of Shikoku Electric Power Company ahead of the symposium in Ehime Prefecture.

The former section chief said he pushed the utility to take part actively in the event by posing questions and expressing opinions. He said he wanted its participation because opponents of nuclear power had prevented constructive debate at a similar symposium the previous year.
The former section chief denied that his aim was to manipulate public opinion. Still, Shikoku Electric mobilized retired employees and people from its affiliates, providing some of them with samples of the desired questions and opinions.

The theme of the symposium was the planned use of mixed uranium-and-plutonium fuel at the utility's nuclear plant in the prefecture. Back then, the company was waiting for local approval to start this method of power generation.

Earlier, another utility --- Chubu Electric --- reported that the nuclear safety agency had asked it to make sure that questions in favor of nuclear power be asked at a government symposium in 2007.

Tuesday, August 02, 2011 09:39 +0900 (JST)
www3.nhk.or.jp