Japan Earthquake | Page 2761
"Decontamination" for Next Year's Cherry Blossom Viewing Season in Fukushima City :
Watari District, where rice with radioactive cesium exceeding the national provisional standard has been discovered, where Professor Yamauchi of Kobe University has said again and again that "decontamination" didn't work and that it even increased the contamination.
ex-skf.blogspot.comby Majj 12/10/2011 11:33:00 AM
UPDATE1: Radioactive water leaks at Kyushu Electric's Genkai reactor
SAGA, Japan, Dec. 10, Kyodo
Kyushu Electric Power Co. said Saturday that 1.8 tons of coolant water containing radioactive materials had leaked within a purification system at an idled reactor at its Genkai nuclear power plant in Saga Prefecture.
But the utility failed to report the leak to the local governments when it detected it Friday morning, only notifying them of trouble with pumps in the system for the No. 3 reactor, which has been suspended for regular checkups, prompting the Genkai mayor to complain.
The water leaked from a joining area of the pumps, with no radioactive materials leaking outside the reactor building, and has been completely recovered, the utility said, adding that the intensity of radioactive matter contained is unknown.
On Friday, the company serving the Kyushu region in southwestern Japan said a rise in temperature over 80C at the base of one of the pumps triggered an alarm, but didn't reveal the water leak on the grounds that it did not go outside the purification system.
The government's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said the leak within the purification system posed no immediate safety threat and urged the firm to investigate the cause.
But Genkai Mayor Hideo Kishimoto said, ''It should have reported properly (to the Genkai town and Saga prefectural governments). I have been repeatedly telling it to change its corporate culture.''
==Kyodo english.kyodonews.jpby Edano 12/10/2011 12:19:04 PM- Nobel laureate, citizens urge abolition of nuclear reactors
TOKYO, Dec. 10, Kyodo
Nobel literature laureate Kenzaburo Oe and antinuclear activists held a rally in Tokyo on Saturday calling for the abolition of nuclear reactors in the aftermath of radiation leaks at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant.
Addressing the protesters in Hibiya Park, who numbered around 5,500, according to the organizers, Oe condemned the Diet's approval Friday of nuclear cooperation agreements with Jordan, Russia, South Korea and Vietnam to allow exports of Japanese-made reactors and technologies to the countries.
''The levels of politicians' caution regarding nuclear reactors have returned to those before March 11'' when the massive earthquake and tsunami crippled the Fukushima plant, Oe said.
Only citizens' movements based on a resolve to eliminate nuclear reactors are dependable when seeking to achieve that goal, now that politicians are increasingly losing a sense of danger in relying on nuclear power, the novelist said.
Ayako Oga, the 38-year-old chief of the secretariat of a civic group formed by Fukushima residents, said, ''Our state of emergency will not end as long as there is a fear that radioactive substances could fall from the sky again (as a result of a nuclear accident), necessitating evacuation.''
After the rally, the protesters marched to the head office of Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the Fukushima plant, chanting, ''Farewell to nuclear reactors, we cherish our lives.''
Mizuho Fukushima, the leader of the Social Democratic Party who took part in the demonstration, said, ''I felt the feelings and enthusiasm of these people. We would like to make efforts to abolish nuclear reactors through our activities on the Diet floor.''
==Kyodo english.kyodonews.jpby Edano 12/10/2011 12:20:20 PM - Researchers to monitor radiation in forest via wild monkeys
FUKUSHIMA, Japan, Dec. 10, Kyodo
Researchers from Fukushima University are planning to measure forest radiation levels in the aftermath of the nuclear crisis in Fukushima Prefecture by placing specially designed monitoring collars on wild monkeys, they said recently.
Each of the collars contains a small radiation survey meter and a global positioning system transmitter and can be unclipped by remote control, allowing the team led by robotics professor Takayuki Takahashi to recover them and collect data in one to two months after releasing the monkeys back into the wild, they said.
Radiation in forests is currently monitored mainly from the air, such as by helicopter, but the researchers believe they can get more detailed data through wild monkeys and aim to implement the project by spring.
The project is designed to also check radiation exposure of wild animals, they said.
In a mountain area in the western part of Minamisoma city, where radiation levels are relatively high, monkeys are known to live in 14 groups, so the team can break down data by their territory, they said.
As male monkeys sometimes leave their troops, the survey will target females, the researchers added.
''Radioactive substances attached to fallen leaves can be easily transferred but we want to check the situation in the woods in the long run,'' Takahashi said.
The team is also developing a system to calculate the radiation level near the ground when a monkey is on a tree by automatically measuring elevation with the GPS, they said.
==Kyodo english.kyodonews.jpby Edano 12/10/2011 12:21:30 PM - they have monkeys in japan ? this country keeps surprising me.by Edano 12/10/2011 12:25:25 PM
- in fukushima ?by Edano 12/10/2011 12:26:24 PM
- 40,000 protesting in moscow...by Edano 12/10/2011 12:30:59 PM
@Edano They probably mean macaques. I confess I don't know the distinction myself.by Pedro Jesus 12/10/2011 12:41:46 PM- If there is any... I just Wikied Japanese macaque and apparently
they call the snow macaque saru in Japanese, which means... yes, monkey! LOLby Pedro Jesus 12/10/2011 12:45:41 PM 
@Edano , Pedro, found a great recent amateur video of the Japanese macaque monkeys bathing in a hot spring. www.flickr.com
by Peter via Flickr 12/10/2011 2:05:41 PM- That would be the famous snow macaque; I think it's exclusive of Japan but I haven't confirmed this
.by Pedro Jesus 12/10/2011 2:41:51 PM - I found something else of note while revisiting Germany-published CTBTO rad measurements early summer. There was a clear up-tick in 137-Cs levels on June 13 in Japan. A slight increase could be measured in Germany a month later. I cannot remember the event that triggered this release. www.bfs.deby Peter 12/10/2011 2:51:25 PM
Here is the graph showing measurements around the world. www.bfs.de
by Peter via Bfs.de 12/10/2011 2:52:46 PM
And here are the measurements in Germany. www.bfs.de
by Peter via Bfs.de 12/10/2011 2:53:58 PM
There also was a small peak in iodine releases in Japan after the 13th of June. www.bfs.de
by Peter via Bfs.de 12/10/2011 2:55:54 PM- I wish they would keep those graphs up to date. It is obvious that the cesium contamination in Japan is not going away.by Peter 12/10/2011 2:57:25 PM
@Peter I might be able to find an old TEPCO document for June or look at Edano's plant graphs. I remember we still had lots of minor incidents into June like the steam shows and 4 smoking.by lillymunster 12/10/2011 3:02:57 PM- @lillymunster , if we can find something would be great. Perhaps edano can help. Like he had this earthquake association. I thought it was of note because even the German stations caught it. This site updates its graphs, even ever so sluggishly. Last time I checked weeks ago, the timeline was shorter.by Peter 12/10/2011 3:07:10 PM
- I stumbled across this data page - looks like a way to graph radiation anywhere in the world?? www.datapoke.orgby lillymunster 12/10/2011 3:08:01 PM
- @Peter The german site may be getting the CTbTO data in batches, explaining the lags or they have someone manually enter something to update the graph. I wish the CTBTO data could be live and public worldwide.by lillymunster 12/10/2011 3:09:30 PM
- Baby food maker ignored info on cesium contamination for weeks — Initially concluded “further investigation was unnecessary” Food maker Meiji Co. received information on three occasions in mid-November about radioactive cesium in its baby food but paid no heed to the leads for about two weeks until it finally looked into the matter when approached by Kyodo News and a citizens' group earlier this month, Kyodo learned Friday. mdn.mainichi.jpby Majj 12/10/2011 3:13:24 PM
- Kyodo: Baby food maker ignored info on cesium contamination for weeks — Initially concluded “further investigation was unnecessary” : ood maker Meiji Co. received information on three occasions in mid-November about radioactive cesium in its baby food but paid no heed to the leads for about two weeks until it finally looked into the matter when approached by Kyodo News and a citizens' group earlier this month, Kyodo learned Friday. mdn.mainichi.jpby `Majj 12/10/2011 3:14:14 PM
- @Majj OMG. that is evil.by lillymunster 12/10/2011 3:14:53 PM
- @lillymunster I start to think that every one aroud is evill :-(by Majj 12/10/2011 3:17:25 PM
- Top nuke regulators tell White House of ‘grave concerns’ with NRC chairman
By Andrew Restuccia and Ben Geman - 12/09/11 07:58 PM ET
Members of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have told the White House that NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko is causing “serious damage” to the agency that could harm the body’s ability to protect health and safety.
An Oct. 13 letter from Jaczko’s four NRC colleagues to White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley is a powerful, unified rebuke of the agency’s leader by his fellow commissioners, who cite “grave concerns” about his conduct and allege it’s increasingly “erratic.”
“We believe that his actions and behavior are causing serious damage to this institution and are creating a chilled work environment at the NRC,” states the letter to Daley from NRC commissioners Kristine L. Svinicki, George Apostolakis, William D. Magwood, IV, and William C. Ostendorff. thehill.comby Majj 12/10/2011 3:17:48 PM - Radioactive materials in the air at fukushima June 13 www.tepco.co.jpby lillymunster 12/10/2011 3:23:35 PM
- June 13 new actions at the plant 3pm:
From 10:09 am to 11:48 am on June 13, we injected water to Unit 3 by
temporary electric pump (From 10:13 am to 11:36 am, hydrazine [corrosion
inhibitor] was also injected at the same time). www.tepco.co.jpby lillymunster 12/10/2011 3:25:19 PM - @Majj , dean once explained that the commissioners are chosen in a political process, a bit like judges, in contrast with seasoned administrators who rise slowly through the ranks. I worked for the federal government for a while. Political appointees are never well liked, because they come to the job with hidden agendas. They commonly show a tendency to wreak havoc and leave things unfinished, when they move on to another, even greater challenge.by Peter 12/10/2011 3:25:45 PM
- Looking back through June 13 reports it appears that is when they first began trying to deal with the water runoff. An attempt to capture and decon the seawater being used. Mentions of water in turbine buildings and the start of water storage whack-a-mole where they moved building to building.
From 3:30 pm on June 11 to 5:01 pm on June 12, we transferred accumulated
water from the basement of Unit 3 Turbine Building to Centralized
Radiation Waste Treatment Facility (Process Main Building). www.tepco.co.jpby lillymunster 12/10/2011 3:28:45 PM - Peter I may have found the incident your after:
"- At 12:42 pm on June 11, we started to operate local exhausters in order
to improve inside environment of Unit 2 Reactor Building."
www.tepco.co.jp
This is the only new incident for June 11-13 that wasn't water handlingby lillymunster 12/10/2011 3:31:20 PM - @Edano They will start reporting "Mutantes Wolfmacaques) ;-)by Majj 12/10/2011 3:39:53 PM
- @lillymunster , that may be it. But the air measurements tepco provides for the 13th do not chime with those of the Japanese station miles away. There the peak reached roughly 2e-02 Bq/cubic meter which according to tepco is above the limit for workers at the plant, that is 3e-03 Bq/cubic meter!by Peter 12/10/2011 3:42:50 PM
- @lilly, correction tepco measures in Bq/cubic centimeters. Okayby Peter 12/10/2011 3:44:33 PM
- @Peter there were lots of those kinds of oddities. The only thing I can think of is TEPCO was fudging numbers. They were still pretty hard in denial mode in Juneby lillymunster 12/10/2011 3:45:04 PM
- Scientists Assess Radioactivity in the Ocean from Japan Nuclear Power Facility: The release of radioactivity from Fukushima--both as atmospheric fallout and direct discharges to the ocean--represents the largest accidental release of radiation to the ocean in history.
Concentrations of cesium-137, a radioactive isotope with a 30-year half-life, at the plants' discharge points to the ocean peaked at more than 50 million times normal/previous levels.
Concentrations 18 miles offshore were higher than those measured in the ocean after the Chernobyl accident 25 years ago. www.nsf.govby Majj 12/10/2011 4:09:40 PM - Liily, I am wrong again by a factor of 1000, seems to be not my day. Please delete my last post. Here now the final version.
@lillymunster, it is just the confusion of different scales used by different parties. I figured 1 cubic meter = 1,000,000 or 1e6 cubic centimeters. If we convert tepco readings into cubic meters, they measured 1.5e-5 Bq/ cubic centimeter or 1.5e1 or 15 Bq/cubic meter for Cs-137 on the 13th of June. The work limit is set at 3e-3 Bq/cubic centimeter or 3e3 or 3,000 Bq/cubic meter. The CTBTO station measured 0.2 Bq/cubic meter that day.by Peter 12/10/2011 4:21:56 PM - @Peter www.youtube.comby watch 12/10/2011 4:22:46 PM
- Genkai Unit 3 plutonium fuel. Leakage in the cooling system. en.wikipedia.orgby MaryW 12/10/2011 4:49:31 PM
- @watch, only goes to show that the CTBTO readings are sensitive and can be quite helpful. I don't understand why the US is not publishing updated measurements, why we must resort to a station in the Black Forest. It looks like tepco put on quite a steam show around that time, ;)by Peter 12/10/2011 4:53:57 PM
@lilly I found the same site www.datapoke.org. I guess they are an ngo in California who performs atmospheric dispersion plots.
by LiberationFront 12/10/2011 4:54:44 PM- @lilly I discovered the following dispersion model on the datapoke site, which someone had linked to Berkeley’s discussion page. It uses TEPCO emission data to model possible dispersion patterns for Neptunium and Plutonium
www.datapoke.org
datapoke.org
If this model is accurate, it is very concerning.by LiberationFront 12/10/2011 4:54:52 PM - @LiberationFront Any idea what data sources they are using?by lillymunster 12/10/2011 4:56:43 PM
A link to their refernce page here:
www.datapoke.org
A link to the actual TEPCO document here:
docs.google.com
Any ideas if these references are viable?by LiberationFront 12/10/2011 4:59:45 PM- @LiberationFront They still have to have some sort of source data to create modeling. It isn't clear what they are using to come to these conclusions of fallout in various locations.
What i know exists so far is CBTBO rad station data. So far the public doesn't have access to that. We can get tidbits out of various national agencies IIRC. Germany published some of it. We have release data and some of the SPEEDI data and also Safecast data in Japan that tells rad levels on a certain date in a location. TEPCO and Speedi are known to be wrong sometimes in where they were released to the public. TEPCO has been caught underestimating release data. SPEEDI IIRC had some issues itself. I don't see an explanation in datapoke how they are creating their conclusions that such and such location had such and such radiation on a certain date.by lillymunster 12/10/2011 5:03:58 PM - On the live youtube webcam, it looks like the plant is decorated for Christmas with all the colored lights! www.youtube.comby MaryW 12/10/2011 5:04:36 PM
Japan Earthquake | Page 2761
- Who's Blogging
-
hudebnik
alblee
UKVal
Oliver (ScribbleLive)
Jonathan Keebler
Matt (ScribbleLive)
kaykodh
PKelley
Markfm
dean
Angie- Edano
Deb
Mid Valley- Pedro Jesus
George Gibb
elainekirk- lillymunster
bo
IanGoddard