Director turns to crowdfunding to make Japanese anti-nuclear film

Director turns to crowdfunding to make Japanese anti-nuclear film

Japanese film director Takafumi Ota had a problem. He needed studio financing for a film that was harshly critical of the nuclear industry in the aftermath of Fukushima, but no one was interested in funding his project the traditional way.

Large sections of Japan’s movie industry wanted nothing to do with it, and he was told that influential sponsors did not want to be associated with anything that criticized the powerful atomic sector.

“It wasn’t only major film distribution companies but also DVD companies — who usually get interested in investing in films to share copyright — who showed no interest in my plan,” said the 52-year-old Ota, whose previous work includes the critically acclaimed 2006 film “Strawberry fields,” which screened at the Cannes International Film Festival.

“A senior film director told me ‘Don’t do this. You’ll never be able to make commercial films.’“

(FULL ARTICLE---LINK)

TEPCO forced to shut down contaminated water processing system at Fukushima Daiichi again

Workers at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant are working around the clock to cool reactors and spent fuel pools.  They are accumulating massive amounts of highly contaminated water from the cooling operations and running out of space to store it on-site.

The troubled Advanced Liquid Processing System, or ALPS, which TEPCO has placed so much responsibility for helping process highly radioactive water to prepare it for storage, has broken down once again during trial operations.

(FULL ARTICLE---LINK)

The Uranium Story You Haven’t Heard

...Barron’s piece inspired me to write to you today. As a long-term investor, I am not tempted — at all — by the apparent bargain in uranium stocks.

I want to preface what follows by saying I get the bullish case for uranium and nuclear power. I was a bull for a time and took positions in uranium stocks in February 2010, just before they started to lift.

“Trading as if the world is always poorly managed and you can’t figure it out is right almost all the time…”

The incident at Fukushima made me reverse course. We sold our uranium stocks in March 2011, shortly after the disaster. We took a 70% gain on Kalahari and saved a slim 7% profit on Paladin Energy. Kalahari got bought out and no longer trades. But Paladin, which I recommended selling at $3.29, is today 39 cents. In my Capital & Crisis newsletter, I also saved a 10% gain on Cameco and sold at $30. Today, it’s $20.

As good as the uranium story sounds, I think there are bigger reasons to avoid the stocks as anything other than trades.

First, because the disaster at Fukushima could easily have an Act II that could be worse than anything we’ve seen so far...

(FULL ARTICLE---LINK)

Japan’s Secrets Bill Turns Journalists Into Terrorists

The buzz in Japanese cyberspace is that Chinese President Xi is wagging the dog by declaring a controversial “air-defense identification zone” across the East China Sea. The move has drastically ramped up tensions with Japan and the U.S., both of which have blatantly disregarded Beijing’s unilateral edict. According to one prevailing theory, Xi is whipping up an international storm to change the subject domestically away from income inequality, official corruption and China’s blackening skies.

The leader benefiting most from the controversy, though, may be Japan’s Abe. With his own populace furious over China’s unilateral decree, the prime minister is seizing the opportunity to rush a chilling official-secrets bill into law.

The entire process has echoes of George Orwell. If enacted, the secrecy law would allow government ministries to declare just about anything they want classified....

(FULL ARTICLE---LINK)

Tainted grub: Japan food scandals cloud export hopes

Tainted grub: Japan food scandals cloud export hopes

 Scandals hurt country's reputation as food safe-haven

* Worries over contamination fester in wake of Fukushima

* Controversies could dent PM's push to export premium foods

* Critics blame lack of oversight, limited funding

By James Topham and Naveen Thukral

TOKYO/SINGAPORE, Dec 3 (Reuters) - Shoppers browsing in supermarkets around the world would once have been reassured by a 'Made in Japan' tag.

But a wave of problems such as a recent mislabelling controversy and festering worries over nuclear contamination have tainted the nation's reputation as a food safe-haven.

(FULL ARTICLE---LINK)

How to Reduce Your Risk of Radiation from Fukushima

Is There Anything We Can Do to Reduce Radiation Risks?

Doctors in Hawaii and the West Coast of North American are being bombarded with questions about how to protect ourselves from radiation from Fukushima.

This essay provides an introduction to some of the main concepts on reducing the risk from radiation. It is broken into the following sections:

Note: Each link will take you to these sections in "Washington's Blog"

I.    Step 1: Reduce Exposure
II.  Certain Minerals Can Reduce Absorption of Harmful Radiation
III. Other Vitamins and Minerals Which Protect Against Radiation Damage
IV.  Antioxidants: Helpful Weapons Against Radiation Damage
V.   Other Things Which Offer Some Radiation Protection
VI.  What To Do If Exposed to Extremely High Doses of Radiation

Note: The article mentions "Prussian Blue" for Cesium exposure. This is effective but a compound of Chlorella and Cilantro with apple pectin was just as effective after Chernobyl and is not  damaging to the digestive system. Prussian Blue is essentially a dye substance that can trap the cesium particles in the intestine. This is effective only if the cesium particles have not yet passed into the body. If time has passed Zeolite (Clinoptilolite), and other substances can help pull the particles from body tissues.  A little web research can yield some good result. Amazon has several good books on the subject and Dr. Sircus has excellent resources. 

Ominous Thyroid Cancer Spike in Fukushima Youth

Ominous Thyroid Cancer Spike in Fukushima Youth

When Japan’s Fukushima reactor began to experience trouble in the wake of a devastating earthquake and tsunami, the world watched in growing horror as the island nation desperately tried to avoid a nuclear disaster.

Almost from the start, efforts seemed plagued with problems, in a combination of unpreparedness, poor facility maintenance and unavoidable incidents that compounded the problems at Fukushima, creating a growing radiation zone that endangered citizens, livestock and the earth itself. Now, more than two years after the horrific events of March 2011, the nation is still struggling with the fallout: quite literally, in the case of an alarming medical trend emerging among Japanese minors.

Since June of this year, six children who were minors at the time of the Fukushima disaster have beendiagnosed with thyroid cancer, which is an unusually high rate, especially when paired with a suspected 10 additional cases. 44 cases in total have been diagnosed since the start of the Fukushima Daiichi disaster, though the overall baseline rate of thyroid cancer in Japanese children remains at one to two in a million.

(FULL ARTICLE---LINK)

Evolution of radioactive dose rates in fresh sediment deposits along coastal rivers draining Fukushima contamination plume

Evolution of radioactive dose rates in fresh sediment deposits along coastal rivers draining Fukushima contamination plume.

Measurement of radioactive dose rates in fine sediment that has recently deposited on channel bed-sand

provides a solution to address the lack of continuous river monitoring in Fukushima Prefecture after

Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant (FDNPP) accident. We show that coastal rivers of Eastern

Fukushima Prefecture were rapidly supplied with sediment contaminated by radionuclides originating

from inland mountain ranges, and that this contaminated material was partly exported by typhoons to the

coastal plains as soon as by November 2011. This export was amplified during snowmelt and typhoons in 2012. In 2013, contamination levels measured in sediment found in the upper parts of the catchments were almost systematically lower than the ones measured in nearby soils, whereas their contamination was higher in the coastal plains. We thereby suggest that storage of contaminated sediment in reservoirs and in coastal sections of the river channels now represents the most crucial issue.

The Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP) accident led to the release of large radionuclide quantities into the atmosphere1,2 and to the formation of a soil contamination plume across Fukushima Prefecture, in northeastern Japan3,4. As radionuclides are strongly sorbed by fine particles, they are likely to be redistributed within the landscape and supplied to the rivers, in association with the mobilization and transport of soil and sediment particles by erosion processes and runoff 5.

(FULL REPORT---LINK)  THIS OPENS AS A .PDF FILE.

Core Meltdown Study

CORE MELTDOWN STUDY

RADIOACTIVE GROUNDWATER AT FUKUSHIMA NEARS PACIFIC

TOKYO (AP) — Deep beneath Fukushima's crippled nuclear power station, a massive underground reservoir of contaminated water that began spilling from the plant's reactors after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami has been creeping slowly toward the Pacific.

Now, 2 1/2 years later, experts fear it is about to reach the ocean and greatly worsen what is fast becoming a new crisis at Fukushima: the inability to contain vast quantities of radioactive water. ...

...experts believe the underground seepage from the reactor and turbine building area is much bigger and possibly more radioactive, confronting the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., with an invisible, chronic problem and few viable solutions. Many also believe it is another example of how TEPCO has repeatedly failed to acknowledge problems that it could almost certainly have foreseen — and taken action to mitigate before they got out of control.

(FULL ARTICLE---LINK)

Secrecy law protests ‘act of terrorism’: LDP secretary-general

Citizens demonstrating against the controversial state secrets bill are committing “an act terrorism,” according to Liberal Democratic Party Secretary-General Shigeru Ishiba.

In a blog post Friday, he wrote: “If you want to realize your ideas and principles, you should follow the democratic principles, by gaining as much support as you can. I think the strategy of merely shouting one’s opinions at the top of one’s lungs is not so fundamentally different from an act of terrorism.”

(FULL ARTICLE---LINK)

Abe Support Falls Below 50% for First Time Amid Secrecy Drive

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s public support dropped below 50 percent for the first time amid a campaign to strengthen Japan’s secrecy laws, a decline that risks eroding his political capital to enact economic reforms.

The cabinet’s approval rating fell to 49 percent, according to a Nov. 30 to Dec. 1 survey by the Asahi newspaper, down 4 percentage points from a month earlier. It showed 50 percent of those surveyed opposed a bill passed by the Diet’s lower house last week that boosts penalties for leaking confidential government information. The upper house may vote this week.

(FULL ARTICLE---LINK)

NOTE:  A PETITION TO STOP THIS SECRECY LAW, WHICH WOULD PRETTY MUCH END ANY OUTFLOW OF REPORTING ON THE FUKUSHIMA NUCLEAR DISASTER, WILL BE AVAILABLE SOON.  WATCH THESE POSTINGS FOR FURTHER INFORMATION. 

Should experts decide everything for us?

“Ask the expert” is the dictum which all of us are told to obey for successfully negotiating an increasingly complex world. There used to be a time when there were fewer experts around to ‘help’ us make decisions which we did without any fuss. The knowledge explosion of the past several decades has broken down domains into cocoons of specialisation. It is true that skill and scholarship in any area are acquired only through dedicated study and research. But punditry has acquired an esoteric dimension which is debatable. ...

...Japan’s famed nuclear safety experts could not anticipate that an earthquake and a tsunami would occur simultaneously. The experts had an alibi for not anticipating the Fukushima nuclear disaster — the accident was a Black Swan — a highly improbable event with enormous consequences. But the fact that a few precautions like a water-proof backup generator could have mitigated the fallout was lost on the pundits. Such precautions do not need expertise, only an application of the mind which has become an endangered activity in the age of the Internet.

(FULL ARTICLE---LINK)

NUCLEAR NATION Official Trailer

Suzuki - Schindler - Fukushima - Extended Clip

Water decontamination system in trouble at Japan's Fukushima

A trouble-prone system used to decontaminate radioactive water at Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant was switched off Sunday because of a chemical leak, the plant's operator said.

(FULL ARTICLE---LINK)

They myth of "Background" Radiation

Below is a seven minute video giving a depiction of all of the nuclear tests that have occurred on our planet from 1945-1998.  While it is true there is natural background radiation in the environment there is also radiation remaining in our environment from the one-thousand plus nuclear bombs that have been exploded. Since there was no extensive background testing prior to the nuclear age it is not really known what part is normal and natural and what part is man-made but what is known is that there is a great deal of health-sapping man-made radioisotopes, such as cesium, plutonium and strontium, that would not exist without nuclear bombs and power plants. Watch all seven minutes below. It is very telling.

Fukushima is Here--Pacific Ocean Current Fukushima Radioisotope Delivery System

500 people assembled on October 19, 2013 on Ocean Beach in San Francisco to form the words "Fukushima is Here". Credit for photo and more information: FukushimaResponse.org

Pacific Ocean Current Pattern

Global Warming vs Global Nuclear Radiation: Climate Scientists Dismiss Fukushima, Lobby for Nuclear Energ

Global Warming vs Global Nuclear Radiation: Climate Scientists Dismiss Fukushima, Lobby for Nuclear Energy

Four climate scientists have made a public statement claiming nuclear power is an answer to global warming.

Before they proceed, they should visit Fukushima, where the Tokyo Electric Power Company has moved definitively toward bringing down the some 1300 hot fuel rods from a pool at Unit Four.

Which makes this a time of global terror.

(FULL ARTICLE---LINK)

Fukushima a possible reason for starfish ‘melting’ along US West Coast

Sunflower starfish is found literally melting in the waters of Washington state’s Puget Sound and along Canada’s west coast....

....Another stranger and disturbing fact is that the threatening symptoms have only been detected in the US and Canada coastal area. Though the reason has not been found yet, many suggest they should be looked for in Japan, or more precisely, in the Fukushima disaster, which is still leaking 300 tons of highly radioactive water into the ocean daily.

There’s massive evidence of Fukushima’s effect on the West Coast despite the silence from most western media, according to investigative journalist Michael Snyder. For example, earlier this month, Canadian authorities found massively high radiation levels in sea bass, with one fish showing 1,000 becquerels per kilogram of cesium.

Added to that, plankton tested from Hawaii to the West Coast also contained high levels of cesium – 137, while California scientists detected same isotopes in 15 out of 15 Bluefin Tuna tested.

(FULL ARTICLE---LINK)

(NOTE: At this point there is inconclusive evidence as to what is causing all of the freak incidents in the Pacific Ocean and it's bays and inlets but they are numerous and they are mostly without precedent or logical explanation. Anecdotal evidence has all of the fingers are pointing to Fukushima but scientific evidence takes time so officially it is inconclusive. For this reason I have avoided posting articles about these incidents since it is easily argued there is no proof. That is true but that tide seems to be shifting and this one specifically mentioned Fukushima as a possible cause.  One thing to keep in mind is that sea-life rapidly bio-accumulates toxins because little fish eat microscopic things and the little fish are then eaten by bigger fish and so on up the chain condensing the contamination. Fish and sea mammals also cross back and forth across the ocean traveling through the plume of radioisotopes and the fact that Fukushima's plume has not yet reached the West Coast is not a good argument. (TEPCO and the Japanese government have not been honest about the true amount released but it is massive even at the levels they have admitted to and no end is in sight for a a very long time.) Add to this the fact that ships cross the Pacific Ocean and the barnacles on the hull ingest this contamination and release it later. Ships also fill their bilges with contaminated water and dump it later. In short...radioisotopes can travel in many ways...not just on the currents. It is not inconceivable that the wildlife on the West Coast is being affected by Fukushima.

Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2013_10_30/Fukushima-a-possible-reason-for-starfish-melting-along-US-West-Coast-3984/

Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2013_10_30/Fukushima-a-possible-reason-for-starfish-melting-along-US-West-Coast-3984/

TEPCO Downplays Huge Risks Involved in Removing Fukushima Fuel Rods

What Is The ACTUAL Risk for Pacific Coast Residents from Fukushima Radiation?

What Is The ACTUAL Risk for Pacific Coast Residents from Fukushima Radiation?

“[The Odds of] Longer Term Chronic Effects, Cancer Or Genetic Effects … Cannot Be Said To Be Zero”

It is very difficult to obtain accurate information on the dangers from Fukushima radiation to residents of the West Coast of North America and Hawaii.

On the one hand, there is fear-mongering and “we’re all going to die” type hysteria.

On the one hand, there is a tendency for governments to cover up the truth to avoid panic and deflect blame for bad policy. Japan is poised to pass a bill which would outlaw most reporting on Fukushima.   And the U.S. government is not even monitoring radiation levels in the waters off the U.S. coast...

(FULL ARTICLE---LINK)

Scanner measures radiation in babies

University of Tokyo researchers and radiation measurement equipment maker Canberra Japan have jointly developed a device to measure internal exposure to radiation in babies, following the outbreak of the crisis at Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in March 2011.

...Until now, infants’ internal exposure has been measured with equipment for adults, leading to some errors. In addition, as such equipment requires the subject to remain standing for about two minutes, babies in principle cannot take the test.

(FULL ARTICLE---LINK)

The $38 billion nuclear waste fiasco

Doing nothing often has a cost — and when it comes to storing the nation’s nuclear waste, the price is $38 billion and rising.

That’s just the low-ball estimate for how much taxpayers will wind up spending because of the government’s decades of dithering about how to handle the radioactive leftovers sitting at dozens of sites in 38 states. The final price will be higher unless the government starts collecting the waste by 2020, which almost nobody who tracks the issue expects.

(FULL ARTICLE---LINK)

NOTE: Japan has no program to dispose of the waste from their fifty plus nuclear reactors. This is why there is hundreds of tons of waste sitting all around Japan (and the US) out in the open air. Japan is the size of California. Space is a supreme issue. Each ounce of stored nuclear waste has the possibility of going critical at any moment if it is not kept cool and out of the open air. This article represents the financial cost of doing nothing but there is a potential human toll to be paid as well.

TEPCO has succeeded in moving 22 spent fuel assemblies to the common pool. (Tally: 22 unspent and 22 spent have been moved.)

Fukushima nuclear disaster causes cancer and birth defects in US newborns – epidemiologist

Fukushima nuclear disaster causes cancer and birth defects in US newborns – epidemiologist

After the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan, little attention was paid to how the radiation leaks can affect the health of children who live in the US. Joseph Mangano, epidemiologist and Executive Director of the Radiation and Public Health Project research group, speaks with the Voice of Russia about the study that showed that kids born after 2010 have some 26% percent higher risks to have cancer and birth defects. But the US keep silent on the problem.

After the study by the Radiation and Public Health Project research was made public there was little response or reaction in the US. Although, Joseph Mangano expects to hear from people more as there are great concerns about the safety of food in water, even in the US from Fukushima.

"We just published a study in the Open Journal of Pediatrics. We looked at official two types of data: one was the EPA statistics on how much radiation was in the air in the weeks and months after Fukushima (it was much higher in the West Coast than in the rest of the country) and number two – we looked at the state California’s official statistics on newborns who are born with a condition called hypothyroidism which is where the thyroid is underactive. It is something that is known to be affected by exposure to radioactive Iodine which is only created in atomic bombs which haven’t been exploded for years and nuclear reactor emissions," explains Joseph Mangano.

The Fukushima nuclear disaster is quite harmful for human health, although it happened in Japan, all the way across the ocean, the contaminated waters and polluted air can easily reach the continent on the other side of the Pacific Ocean.

(FULL ARTICLE---LINK)

OP-ED: Is NRC afraid of what would be revealed about nuclear plant safety?

Forest Remick’s support for nuclear energy (The Mercury Nov. 16) is contradicted by former NRC Chairman Jaczko who has called for the phase-out of U.S. nuclear plants due to their irreparable design flaws (reported March 2013). Jaczko acknowledged that NRC cannot guarantee that U.S. plants will not result in Fukushima-like meltdowns. Serious problems have led to U.S. nuclear plant closings this year. Unlike Remick, Jaczko has the integrity and moral compass to tell the truth.

Remick does not serve public interests. His assertion that global warming is an acceptable excuse to promote dangerous, polluting, and costly nuclear power is irresponsible. Independent research shows that the entire nuclear energy cycle has the largest carbon footprint of any energy source other than fossil fuels.

Fukushima-type nuclear plants like Limerick are in violation of their operating permits due to fatal design flaws. Limerick’s GE Mark II boiling water reactors present unacceptable risks to public health, safety, and the environment during a radiation accident/meltdown. They are guaranteed to become radioactive fire hoses into the sky, destroying the health and lives of millions of people living in our densely populated Greater Philadelphia Region. Over 8 million people live within 50 miles of Limerick. We can’t evacuate safely.

(FULL ARTICLE---LINK)

Doubts grow about plan to dispose of Hanford's radioactive waste

Experts raise concerns about the complex technology intended to turn 56 million gallons of radioactive sludge at the former Hanford nuclear facility into glass and prepare it for safe burial.

RICHLAND, Wash. — On a wind-swept plateau, underground steel tanks that hold the nation's most deadly radioactive waste are slowly rotting. The soil deep under the desert brush is being fouled with plutonium, cesium and other material so toxic that it could deliver a lethal dose of radiation to a nearby person in minutes.

The aging tanks at the former Hanford nuclear weapons complex contain 56 million gallons of sludge, the byproduct of several decades of nuclear weapons production, and they represent one of the nation's most treacherous environmental threats.

Energy Department officials have repeatedly assured the public that they have the advanced technology needed to safely dispose of the waste. An industrial city has been under development here for 24 years, designed to transform the sludge into solid glass and prepare it for permanent burial.

But with $13 billion already spent, there are serious doubts that the highly complex technology will even work or that the current plan can clean up all the waste. Alarmed at warnings raised by outside experts and some of the project's own engineers, Department of Energy officials last year ordered a halt to construction on the most important parts of the waste treatment plant.

(FULL ARTICLE---LINK)

(NOTE: This article does not address Fukushima directly but I include it because all nuclear facilities exist under the premise that someday the technology will exist to "clean up" all the deadly waste left behind. So far an effective means has not been developed. The waste from a nuclear facility must be segregated from humanity for literally millions of years.  I am downwind from this facility and in the event of a cataclysmic event at Hanford you likely are too.)

EPA RELAXES PUBLIC HEALTH GUIDELINES FOR RADIOLOGICAL ATTACKS, ACCIDENTS

EPA RELAXES PUBLIC HEALTH gUIDELINES FOR RADIOLOGICAL ATTACKS, ACCIDENTS

By Douglas P. GuarinoGlobal Security NewswireApril 9, 2013 

After years of internal deliberation and controversy, the Obama administration has issued a document suggesting that when dealing with the aftermath of an accident or attack involving radioactive materials, public health guidelines can be made thousands of times less stringent than what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency would normally allow.

The EPA document, called a protective action guide for radiological incidents, was quietly posted on a page on the agency’s website Friday evening. The low-profile release followed an uproar of concern from watchdog groups in recent weeks over news that the White House had privately agreed to back relaxed radiological cleanup standards in certain circumstances and had cleared the path for the new EPA guide.

Agency officials had tried to issue the protective action guide during the final days of the Bush administration in January 2009, but the incoming Obama camp ultimatelyblocked its publication in part due to concerns that it included guidelines suggesting people could drink water contaminated at levels thousands of times above what the agency would typically permit.

The new version of the guide released Friday does not include such dramatically relaxed guidelines its text, but directs the reader to similar recommendations made by other federal agencies and international organizations in various documents. It suggests that they might be worth considering in circumstances where complying with its own enforceable drinking water regulations is deemed impractical.

Such circumstances could include the months – and possibly years – following a “dirty bomb” attack, a nuclear weapons explosion or an accident at a nuclear power plant, according to the guide, a nonbinding document intended to prepare federal, state and local officials for responding to such events.

For example, the new EPA guide refers to International Atomic Energy Agency guidelines that suggest intervention is not necessary until drinking water is contaminated with radioactive iodine 131 at a concentration of 81,000 picocuries per liter. This is 27,000 times less stringent than the EPA rule of 3 picocuries per liter.

(FULL ARTICLE---LINK)

EPA SOURCE DOCUMENT

Why TEPCO is Risking the Removal of Fukushima Fuel Rods: The Dangers of Uncontrolled Global Nuclear Radiation

...Lifting the 1,533 fuel bundles out of the pool is fraught with danger. If an assembly breaks away and falls, the impact could shatter other rods below, triggering an uncontrolled nuclear reaction. Compounding the threat, many rods are not intact but were fragmented into loose shards by a collapsing crane. In addition, many of the rods likely lost their protective cladding during the two fires that engulfed the spent-fuel pool on March 14 and 15, 2011.

The urgency of this transfer operation is prompted by the warping of the supporting steel frame by the twin fires that followed the March 11 quake. The pool is also tilting. If the unbalanced structure topples, the collapse would trigger nuclear reactions. A cascade of neutrons could then ignite the nearby common fuel pool for Reactors 1 through 6. The common pool contains 6,735 used assemblies.(2)

The Reactor 4 spent fuel pool contains an estimated 400 tons of uranium and plutonium oxide, compared with just 6.2 kilograms of plutonium inside Fat Man, the hydrogen bomb that obliterated Nagasaki in 1945.  (While predictions are bandied about by experts and bloggers, there exists no reliable method for calculating the potential sum or flow rate of radiation releases, measured in becquerel or sievert units, after an accident. The tonnage involved, however, indicates only that a large-scale event is likely and a cataclysm cannot be ruled out.)

(FULL ARTICLE---LINK)

What happens when Tepco's coffers run dry?

Operator of Japan's Fukushima plant cuts profit forecast; no risk to loans

The operator of the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant is forecasting profits that fall short of minimum levels set by its banks, but the lenders are likely to ease their lending conditions to allow fresh financing for the embattled utility, people involved in the process said yesterday.

As part of a financial revival plan to be completed next month, Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) will forecast recurring profit of 167.7 billion yen (HK$12.7 billion) for the business year starting next April, the sources said on condition of anonymity.

This falls far below the original forecast for the period, made under the current business plan, of a 261.9 billion yen profit and below the minimum 200 billion yen requirement under the lending covenants set by Tepco's creditors, the sources said.

When a borrower breaches a covenant, the lender can request repayment of the loan. But the sources said Tepco's main banks are likely to go along in December with the company's request for 500 billion yen in financing - 300 billion yen in new loans and 200 billion in loan rollovers.

That is because the banks largely agree with Tepco that the big cut in its profit forecast is mainly the result of a delay in the restart of Tepco's undamaged Kashiwazaki Kariwa nuclear plant on the Japan Sea coast.

Tepco to divert $7.2 bln from 10-yr capex budget to Fukushima -sources

Nov 29 (Reuters) - The operator of the Fukushima nuclear plant plans to rechannel 740 billion yen ($7.24 billion) from its 10-year capital investment budget to address problems at the crippled facility such as a buildup of contaminated water, people involved in the matter said on Friday.

Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) will also divert another 790 billion yen from the 6.6 trillion yen capital spending plan to invest in promising businesses and secure overseas resource supplies, the sources told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

A Tepco representative declined comment on the company's plans.

(FULL ARTICLE--LINK)

Long Term Dispersion Model

NOTE: This dispersion model was completed early in the disaster and assumed a finite dispersion of contaminated water from the reactors. 

"Assuming  a total release of 9 PBq of 137 Cs from the Fukushima Daiichi NPP into the marine environment (only including liquid releases on the Pacific Ocean), the simulation is carried out up to 2041."

As was learned in just the last day or two the cyclones and other storms are washing huge amounts of radioisotopes into the rivers and streams and washing this into the ocean as well. This runoff is not accounted for in this model. 

(LINK---CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE MODEL AND EXPLANATION)

Japan tries to plug leaks about leaks, donning Russia’s mantle of nuclear and Olympic explosions

Japan tries to plug leaks about leaks, donning Russia’s mantle of nuclear and Olympic explosions

The Japanese government’s powerful lower house of Parliament passed a stiff new secrecy bill that would visit harsh penalties on bureaucrats who leak information, and reporters who seek it – a move environmentalists fear would allow official collusion and corruption of the kind unearthed during the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster to flourish.

(FULL ARTICLE---LINK)

Fukushima residents furious at lower house passage of contentious secrecy bill

FUKUSHIMA -- Residents here are angry over the ruling bloc's railroading of a highly controversial state secrets protection bill through the House of Representatives on the evening of Nov. 26 -- just one day after voicing strong opposition to the legislation at a public hearing.

(FULL ARTICLE---LINK)

Japan’s new Secrets Bill Threatens To Muzzle The Press and Whistleblowers

Japan’s new Secrets Bill Threatens To Muzzle The Press and Whistleblowers

An ominous new bill in Japan, on its way to becoming law, would give the government expanded powers to classify nearly anything as a secret and intimidate the press into silence.

The best way to deal with foul smelling things is to put a lid over them (臭いものに蓋をする)--Japanese proverb

The Japanese government, which already has a long history of cover-ups and opaqueness, is on its way to becoming even less open and transparent after the lower house the Diet, Japan’s parliament, passed the Designated Secrets Bill on Tuesday. With new powers to classify nearly anything as a state secret and harsh punishments for leakers that can easily be used to intimidate whistleblowers and stifle press freedom, many in Japan worry that the if the bill becomes law it will be only the first step towards even more severe erosions of freedom in the country.    

...And most tellingly, Masako Mori, the Minister of Justice, has declared that nuclear related information will most likely be a designated secret. For the Abe administration this would be fantastic way to deal with the issue of tons of radiated water leaking from the Fukushima Daichi Nuclear Power Plant since the triple meltdown in March of 2011. There seems to be no end to stopping the toxic waste leaks there but the new legislation would allow the administration to plug the information leaks permanently.

As the radioactive water from Japan’s nuclear disaster continues to pour into the ocean and our food supply, it is an ominous sign that the Japanese government refuses to disclose information about the levels of pollution or timely information about the next nuclear accident. And security issues at Japan’s nuclear power plants being, which hold enough plutonium to make hundreds of atomic weapons, including reports that they’re manned by the yakuza, could also be hidden by under the guise of state secrets.

Before Japan was selected to host the 2020 Olympics, Prime Minister Abe spoke at the General Meeting of the International Olympic Committee, where he assured them, “The Fukushima nuclear accident is under control.” This was followed by revelations of large amounts of radioactive water leaking from the power plant, and the remaining water tanks emitting radiation levels so high that anyone working around them would be exposed to a lethal dose within hours. It made Abe look perfidious or clueless or both. He seems anxious not to lose face again.  

(FULL ARTICLE---LINK)

Editorial: More discussion needed to prevent state secrets bill from destroying democracy

The ruling coalition's ramming of a controversial special state secrets bill, which would impose harsh penalties on those who leak classified government information, through the House of Representatives on Nov. 26 has stunned the public.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was absent from the chamber's special committee on national security when it approved the bill. Since the voting session was aired live, the ruling coalition comprised of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the New Komeito party reportedly decided not to show the public that it rammed the bill through in the presence of the prime minister.

This has suggested that even the ruling bloc cannot take pride in the passage of the bill through the powerful chamber. During a public hearing in Fukushima the previous day, all the attendees demanded that the bill be either scrapped or deliberated cautiously. However, such desperate calls from the area affected by the nuclear crisis did not reach the legislative branch of the government.

(FULL ARTICLE---LINK)

Fukushima Nuclear Accident Forces School Closure

11/29/2013 4:57 AM ET

A reputed high school in Japan's Fukushima prefecture will formally close down by March for want of students, an aftermath of the 2011 nuclear accident which displaced tens of thousands of residents in the country's northeast.

Private-run Shoei High School in Minamisoma city will be the first of the prefecture's schools to close since the nuclear accident, the worst since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine.

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ANOTHER $100 MLN ALLOCATED FOR TOXIC WATER HANDLING AT FUKUSHIMA

ANOTHER $100 MLN ALLOCATED FOR TOXIC WATER HANDLING AT FUKUSHIMA

Japan is planning to allocate more than $100 million in extra government spending to administrate the problem of the radioactive water at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant. The budget allocation will be increased by at least a fifth, government officials said.

The sum of Y10-15 billion will be used to accelerate work on containing leaks and decontaminating the water, said the officials, who preferred to remain anonymous. Another Y47 billion were allocated by the government for the same project less than three months ago.

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