FROM: TIMES OF INDIA
NEW DELHI: Tepco, the utility company that is managing the destroyed Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan said that there were mistakes in the radiation levels they recorded last year. According to Japanese media, Tepcoannounced last week that what was recorded as 900,000 becquerels per liter of deadly beta radiation from a test-well last July was wrong andthe actual level should read 5 million becq per liter. That's five times more than what they announced previously, and nearly 170,000 times more than the permissible level.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. said on 7 February that it will review a "massive" amount of radiation data it has collected at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant because readings may be lower than actual figures due to improper measurement.
"We are very sorry, but we found cases in which beta radiation readings turned out to be wrong when the radioactivity concentration of a sample was high," TEPCO spokesman Masayuki Ono told a press conference, according to Kyodo News.
Beta rays are high speed electrons that penetrate living matter with ease and can cause several types of cancer and death. These lethal rays are emitted from various radioactive materials, but mainly from Strontium-90, which is a by-product of reactions occurring in nuclear power plant reactors.
(FULL ARTICLE---LINK)
Modern industrial society is a fanatical religion. We are demolishing, poisoning, destroying all life-systems on the planet. We are signing IOUs our children will not be able to pay...We are acting as if we were the last generation on the planet. Without a radical change in heart, in mind, in vision, the earth will end up like Venus, charred and dead. – Jose Antonio Lutzenberger, Brazilian Minister for the Environment
Monday, February 10, 2014
Unit 4 Completion Status as of 2/10/14 (20% Completed)
Completion status of transfer from Unit 4 to Common Pool
- ◯Breakdown of transferred assemblies by kind
Spent fuel286 assemblies/1,331 assemblies
Unirradiated (New) fuel22 assemblies/ 202 assemblies - ◯Number of times of cask transportation:
14 times
as of Feb.10,2014
Saturday, February 8, 2014
Tepco: No. 1 plant readings probably too low
FROM: JAPAN TIMES
The bulk of the radiation measurements taken at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 power plant since March 2011 will be reviewed because they were taken improperly and are probably too low, Tokyo Electric Power Co. revealed.
“We are very sorry, but we found cases in which beta radiation readings turned out to be wrong when the radioactivity concentration of a sample was high,” Tepco spokesman Masayuki Ono told a news conference Friday. Materials known to emit beta rays include strontium-90, which causes bone cancer.
The announcement follows Tepco’s finding Thursday that a groundwater sample it had taken from a well at the No. 1 plant last July contained a record-high 5 million becquerels of strontium-90 per liter instead of 900,000 becquerels.
Fukushima radiation levels underestimated by five times - TEPCO
FROM: RT
TEPCO has revised the readings on the radioactivity levels at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant well to 5 million becquerels of strontium per liter – both a record, and nearly five times higher than the original reading of 900,000 becquerels per liter.
Strontium-90 is a radioactive isotope of strontium produced by nuclear fission with a half-life of 28.8 years. The legal standard for strontium emissions is 30 becquerels per liter. Exposure to strontium-90 can cause bone cancer, cancer of nearby tissues, and leukemia.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. originally said that the said 900,000 becquerels of beta-ray sources per liter, including strontium - were measured in the water sampled on July 5 last year.
However, the company noted on Friday that the previous radioactivity levels had been wrong, meaning that it was also likely reading taken from the other wells at the disaster-struck plant prior to September were also likely to have been inaccurate, the Asahi Shimbum newspaper reported.
The Japanese company has already apologized for the failures, which they said were a result of the malfunctioning of measuring equipment.
Official lack of testing profoundly negligent
FROM: THE COAST REPORTER
I felt pretty good Tuesday evening after getting off the phone with Robin Brown, head of the ocean sciences division of the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans, based in Sidney, B.C.
Brown, who co-authored a DFO report last year tracking the movement of Fukushima radiation to the West Coast, sounded very reasonable and reassuring when he said radiation levels detected so far were nothing to worry about from a human health standpoint.
“I’m still eating sushi. I’m still eating salmon. I’m not selling my house and moving to the Prairies,” he told me. “But I’m out in the community and I know people are concerned.”
Brown said he felt sorry for people. “There is so much scary misinformation available on the web. I know people are frightened by this.”
One of the reasons people are afraid, of course, is that governments are not telling us much at all about the spread of radiation from Japan or its impacts on the environment. That’s why I was encouraged when I talked to Brown. He said Health Canada was doing some testing on marine life for radiation levels, measuring concentrations in fish.
That’s what First Nation leaders are calling for, and I thought it was a positive development.
The next day I tried tracking down the Health Canada contact that Brown gave me, who is the director of the department’s Radiation Protection Bureau in Ottawa.
Instead of getting a scientist, I got a communications officer, who redirected me to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. There, another communications officer responded with an emailed statement that said Canada has not been testing marine life for radiation since early 2012 because “it is not required.”
After hearing from Brown that Fukushima radiation was first detected in B.C. coastal waters in June 2013, the lack of testing — or official lack of testing — seemed profoundly negligent. A lot of my good feelings vanished.
Fukushima: Radioactive leaks continue -- New Unit 3 problem found
FROM: THE CANADIAN
Highly radioactive water, believed to have leaked from one of the damaged reactors, has been detected inside Unit 3 Reactor at the compromised Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. There's been no leakage to the outside of the building, TEPCO announced.
According to Asia's largest utility, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), water leakage was identified for the first time by a robot removing debris on the first floor of Unit 3 Reactor at the Fukushima plant. Video filmed by the robot shows highly radioactive water, found to contain high levels of radioactive cesium and cobalt. On Saturday, one of the workers who was busy monitoring the robotic device's screen, discovered that water was leaking to the drainage ditch in the northeast area of first floor, where the main steam isolation valve is located.
The reactor has been steadily cooled. The company said it will continue investigating the cause and the spot of the leakage, without interrupting the decommissioning work.
Since the outbreak of the Fukushima disaster in March 2011, leakage of radiation-contaminated water has posed a major threat to Japan’s population and environment, and to the international community.
(FULL ARTICLE---LINK)
Highly radioactive water, believed to have leaked from one of the damaged reactors, has been detected inside Unit 3 Reactor at the compromised Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. There's been no leakage to the outside of the building, TEPCO announced.
According to Asia's largest utility, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), water leakage was identified for the first time by a robot removing debris on the first floor of Unit 3 Reactor at the Fukushima plant. Video filmed by the robot shows highly radioactive water, found to contain high levels of radioactive cesium and cobalt. On Saturday, one of the workers who was busy monitoring the robotic device's screen, discovered that water was leaking to the drainage ditch in the northeast area of first floor, where the main steam isolation valve is located.
The reactor has been steadily cooled. The company said it will continue investigating the cause and the spot of the leakage, without interrupting the decommissioning work.
Since the outbreak of the Fukushima disaster in March 2011, leakage of radiation-contaminated water has posed a major threat to Japan’s population and environment, and to the international community.
(FULL ARTICLE---LINK)
Fukushima: Fish testing at 124 times over radiation limit
FROM: THE CANADIAN
Fish with deadly levels of radioactive cesium have been caught just off the coast of Fukushima prefecture, as scientists continue to assess the damage caused to the marine food chain by the 2011 nuclear disaster.
One of the samples of the 37 black sea bream specimens caught some 37 kilometers south of the crippled power plant tested at 12,400 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive cesium, making it 124 times deadlier than the threshold considered safe for human consumption, Japan's Fisheries Research Agency announced.
One of the samples of the 37 black sea bream specimens caught some 37 kilometers south of the crippled power plant tested at 12,400 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive cesium, making it 124 times deadlier than the threshold considered safe for human consumption, Japan's Fisheries Research Agency announced.
#Fukushima I NPP: TEPCO Admits Error 7 Months Later, Says All-Beta from Observation Hole Along Embankment Was 10 Million Bq/L, Not 900K Bq/L
FROM: EXSKF
(UPDATE) It may not just be about groundwater samples along the embankment. All the high-density all-beta/strontium analyses done at Fukushima I NPP, including the analyses of all-beta/strontium in the RO (reverse osmosis) waste water, may be wrong. Or TEPCO says they "cannot deny the possibility that the analyses were wrong." (from a tweet by @jaikoman who tweets just about every single TEPCO and NRA press conference)
Jiji Tsushin just reported the same thing. The information is from the press conference on February 7, 2014.
For more information about the RO waste water leak of August 2013, go to this link.
(FULL ARTICLE---LINK)
(UPDATE) It may not just be about groundwater samples along the embankment. All the high-density all-beta/strontium analyses done at Fukushima I NPP, including the analyses of all-beta/strontium in the RO (reverse osmosis) waste water, may be wrong. Or TEPCO says they "cannot deny the possibility that the analyses were wrong." (from a tweet by @jaikoman who tweets just about every single TEPCO and NRA press conference)
Jiji Tsushin just reported the same thing. The information is from the press conference on February 7, 2014.
For more information about the RO waste water leak of August 2013, go to this link.
(FULL ARTICLE---LINK)
TEPCO to review eroneous radiation data
FROM: NHK WORLD
The operator of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has decided to review radiation data after finding the initial readings may be much lower than actual figures.
Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, says it has detected a record high 5 million becquerels per liter of radioactive strontium in groundwater collected last July from one of wells close to the ocean.
That's more than 160,000 times the state standard for radioactive wastewater normally released into the sea.
Based on the result, levels of radioactive substances that emit beta particles are estimated to be 10 million becquerels per liter, which is more than 10 times the initial reading.
TEPCO initially said it had detected 900,000 becquerels per liter of beta ray-emitting substances.
(FULL ARTICLE---LINK)
The operator of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has decided to review radiation data after finding the initial readings may be much lower than actual figures.
Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, says it has detected a record high 5 million becquerels per liter of radioactive strontium in groundwater collected last July from one of wells close to the ocean.
That's more than 160,000 times the state standard for radioactive wastewater normally released into the sea.
Based on the result, levels of radioactive substances that emit beta particles are estimated to be 10 million becquerels per liter, which is more than 10 times the initial reading.
TEPCO initially said it had detected 900,000 becquerels per liter of beta ray-emitting substances.
(FULL ARTICLE---LINK)
TEPCO to review "massive" radiation data due to improper measurement
FROM: KYODO NEWS
Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Friday that it will review a "massive" amount of radiation data it has collected at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant because readings may be lower than actual figures due to improper measurement.
"We are very sorry, but we found cases in which beta radiation readings turned out to be wrong when the radioactivity concentration of a sample was high," TEPCO spokesman Masayuki Ono told a press conference. Beta ray-emitting radioactive materials include strontium-90.
The announcement follows TEPCO's finding released Thursday that a groundwater sample taken from a well at the plant last July contained a record-high 5 million becquerels per liter of radioactive strontium-90.
--------------
Two Quakes Strike Near Fukushima as US Sailors Sue Over Cleanup
FROM: NBC NEWS
Two magnitude-5 earthquakes hit Friday off the coast of Japan's Fukushima prefecture, site of the catastrophic 2011 earthquake and tsunami that killed more than 18,000 people and triggered a nuclear disaster in the Pacific region.
The quakes — which the U.S. Geological Survey measured at magnitudes 5 and 5.1 — caused no notable damage, and no tsunami warnings were issued.
But they served as another reminder of the March 2011 Tohoku quake, which created an environmental disaster and has led to hundreds of lawsuits against the operator of the Fukushima nuclear plant and the manufacturers of the reactors that failed.
Is Radioactive Hydrogen in Drinking Water a Cancer Threat?
FROM: SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN
Add two extra neutrons to the lightest element and hydrogen becomes radioactive, earning the name tritium. Even before the Three Mile Island accidentin 1979 regulators worried that this ubiquitous by-product of nuclear reactors could pose a threat to human health. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was only seven years old when it put the first rules on the books for tritium in 1977. But a lot has happened in the intervening decades, and it is not just a longer list of nuclear accidents.
The Chernobyl and Fukushima meltdowns let loose plenty of tritium, but so have a seemingly endless series of leaks at aging reactors in the U.S. and elsewhere. Such leaks have prompted the EPA to announce on February 4 plans to revisit standards for tritium that has found its way into water—so-called tritiated water, or HTO—along with risk limits for individual exposure to radiation and nuclear waste storage, among other issues surrounding nuclear power.
(FULL ARTICLE---LINK)
Add two extra neutrons to the lightest element and hydrogen becomes radioactive, earning the name tritium. Even before the Three Mile Island accidentin 1979 regulators worried that this ubiquitous by-product of nuclear reactors could pose a threat to human health. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was only seven years old when it put the first rules on the books for tritium in 1977. But a lot has happened in the intervening decades, and it is not just a longer list of nuclear accidents.
The Chernobyl and Fukushima meltdowns let loose plenty of tritium, but so have a seemingly endless series of leaks at aging reactors in the U.S. and elsewhere. Such leaks have prompted the EPA to announce on February 4 plans to revisit standards for tritium that has found its way into water—so-called tritiated water, or HTO—along with risk limits for individual exposure to radiation and nuclear waste storage, among other issues surrounding nuclear power.
(FULL ARTICLE---LINK)
Lessons for fixing Fukushima
FROM: JAPAN TIMES
In March 2011 all of Japan was united by the terrible experience of the earthquake, tsunami and subsequent nuclear accident. Three years later this unity is increasingly fracturing as a more complex and uneven reality emerges.
For the vast majority of the country that was not directly affected, the memories of those tragic events are beginning to fade, as other concerns — especially the economy — dominate. Meanwhile, the victims of the triple disaster still struggle to restart or move on with their lives.
Eight more Fukushima kids found with thyroid cancer; disaster link denied
FROM: JAPAN TIMES
FUKUSHIMA – Eight more Fukushima children have been confirmed as having thyroid gland cancer following the prefecture’s checkups, a local panel of experts said Friday, ruling out any link to the Tepco triple-meltdown calamity.
The prefecture began the checkups in 2011 due to the nuclear disaster at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 power station. Those subject to the measure were 18 or under at that time.
The panel, made up mainly of doctors and other medical experts, said it is unlikely the disease was caused by exposure to radiation from radioactive materials from the stricken power station.
Record strontium-90 level in Fukushima groundwater sample last July
FROM: JAPAN TIMES
FUKUSHIMA – Tepco says a groundwater sample taken from a well at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant last July contained a record high 5 million becquerels per liter of radioactive strontium-90.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. initially said it had detected 900,000 becquerels per liter of beta ray-emitting radioactive substances, such as strontium, in the sample taken July 5 but then found problems in the measuring equipment in October.
Strontium-90 usually accounts for about a half of all beta particle-emitting substances in contaminated water at the disaster-stricken power station.
The total amount of beta particle-emitting materials in the samples are likely to be around 10 million becquerels, far higher than the previous high of 3.1 million becquerels for that well, a Tepco official said Thursday.
Tepco stopped releasing strontium-90 data after finding problems in the readings for July and August. It recently found mistakes in its calculation method and obtained new readings through rechecks.
Friday, February 7, 2014
Scientists Admit: We Don’t Know the Impact of Fukushima Radiation on Humans
FROM: PREPPER PODCAST RADIO NETWORK
Susanne Posel ,Chief Editor Occupy Corporatism | The US Independent
February 5, 2014
Researchers publishing on the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have released a study (that is now scrubbed from the internet) that centers on the need for establishing “reliable and accurate radiation dose estimates for the affected populations.”
This study was released in January of 2014. It details how scientists do not know the impact of radiation exposure to the human body and how the long-term effects of exposure to Fukushima radiation is still unknown.
Indeed, this study refers to the fact that currently the “strategies for dose assessment” when involving nuclear accidents are haphazard and do not follow a universal scientific method.
In this study, researchers “propose a comprehensive systematic approach to estimating radiation doses for the evaluation of health risks resulting from a nuclear power plant accident.”
The study asserts: “The guidelines we recommend here are intended to facilitate obtaining reliable dose estimations for a range of different exposure conditions. We recognize that full implementation of the proposed approach may not always be feasible because of other priorities during the nuclear accident emergency and because of limited resources in manpower and equipment. The proposed approach can serve as a basis to optimize the value of radiation dose reconstruction following a nuclear reactor accident.”
According to the report, deciphering the dangers of “radiation exposure following nuclear accident” is based on “medical planning, emergency response, and immediate consequence management but is limited for the collection of radiation exposure–related data needed to predict or estimate risks for late health effects.”
Indeed, this issue poses a problem when there are no established “guidelines to estimate radiation doses for evaluations of health risk.”
Will Fukushima’s Leaking Radiation Contaminate Tokyo’s Water Supply? - See more at: http://www.thedailysheeple.com/will-fukushimas-leaking-radiation-contaminate-tokyos-water-supply_022014#sthash.OAxKUNgA.dpuf
FROM: THE DAILY SHEEPLE (By Richard Wilcox Ph.D)
Anyone who has been following the ongoing nightmare of the Fukushima nuclear disaster will know that over the past months there have been a slew of news articles documenting the contamination of the land and water beneath the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant No. 1 (FNPP#1), also referred to as “Dai-ichi,” meaning “no. 1.” The radioactive contamination beneath the FNPP#1 is both highly radioactive and being found at great depths.
Situated on the edge of the ocean, FNPP#1 is built on soft and spongy “fill” soil and is nearly the opposite of Chernobyl where that power plant’s foundation was rock solid.
We can clearly detect a pattern here: the corium globs (melted fuel) from the three melted down reactors (numbers 1, 2, 3) are in unknown locations. That melted fuel could either be in the bottom of the reactor buildings where it is constantly being cooled by the coolant water that Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) is pumping onto it, or melted through the bottom of the buildings and undergoing a China Syndrome phenomenon. Either way not only is coolant water leaking out of the buildings before it is recycled into safer storage tanks, but also groundwater is seeping up into those buildings, becoming contaminated, then pouring out again. The contaminated water is traveling both into the ground water and out to sea.
Just recently it has been reported that Tepco is planning to dump all of the stored water on site, as they are running out of space! The filtration system is imperfect and does not remove all radionuclides reliably, and crucially does not remove any tritium, which would be the main source of radiation to be dumped into the ocean.
(...)
An Underground Plume Of Doom?
However, the groundwater contamination issue is something few people are talking about. A colleague of mine who is an astute researcher, Professor Uranium, and I, were discussing the possibility of the Tokyo drinking water supply eventually becoming contaminated by this process.
“I think the plume of radiation in the aquifer is relatively slow moving. But my understanding is that the aquifer under Daiichi eventually connects up to other aquifers in Japan, including the one that sources Tokyo. The fuel is underground. The water supply is going to be contaminated in the long run.”
Back in 2012 one of the more honest and outspoken nuclear engineers in Japan at the time, Masashi Goto, was quoted as saying he worried the contamination from the FNPP#1 could potentially reach “public water supplies” (4).
Join the Fukushima Radiation Watch
FROM: MOTHERBOARD
Whether you’re worried about splashing in a radioactive surf, threats to ocean life, or just like filling up containers with water, you can help scientists watch for evidence of some of those 300 metric tons of contaminated ground water from Fukushima’s nuclear plant that seeps into the ocean every day finally reaching America, by lending your time and/or your treasure.
As perhaps a living testament to just the sheer immensity of the Pacific Ocean, radiation from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear plant still hasn’t been detected in the Pacific off the North American West Coast. While the radiation could be detected in the California air within days, the radioactive plume of cesium that was released at the same time should be arriving in Hawaii and Alaska later this year, and work its way down to the lower 48 in the following year or two.
Another testament to the Pacific Ocean’s size is just how unconcerned American authorities are about radiation from Fukushima—there is no US government organization monitoring the radiation’s spread.
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