background preloader

Fukushima Nuke News

Facebook Twitter

Trying to aggregate broad coverage of the responses and not individual situation updates. Cultural differences in risk perception are also important

Fukushima loses cooling power | Environment. A damaged reactor building at the Fukushima power plant where an electricity failure has left spent nuclear fuel rods without fresh cooling water. Photograph: Tepco/EPA Four fuel storage pools at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant have been without fresh cooling water for more than 15 hours due to a power outage. The plant's operator has said it is trying to repair or replace a broken switchboard that might be the problem. The 11 March 2011 earthquake and tsunami destroyed the plant's power and cooling systems, causing three reactor cores to melt and fuel storage pools to overheat.

The plant has since been using makeshift systems. Plant operator Tepco said pool temperatures remained within safe levels and the pools would remain safe for at least four days without fresh cooling water. Tepco was preparing a backup system in case the repairs didn't work, said Masayuki Ono, a company official. Yoshihide Suga, the chief government spokesman, sought to allay concerns. Record levels of radiation found in fish near Japan's Fukushima plant. Ocean still suffering from Fukushima fallout. Noriko Hayashi for The Washington Post via Getty Images Seafood from the seas around the destroyed Fukushima nuclear power plant is still not considered safe to eat. Radioactivity is persisting in the ocean waters close to Japan's ruined nuclear power plant at Fukushima Daiichi. New data presented at a conference held on 12–13 November at the University of Tokyo show that levels of radioactivity in the sea around the plant remain stable, rather than falling as expected.

Researchers believe that run-off from rivers, as well as continued leaks from the plant, may be partially to blame. But contaminated sediment and marine organisms also seem to be involved. The level of contamination is not likely to pose a significant health risk to humans. On 11 March 2011, a magnitude-9 earthquake struck off the coast of Japan. The Fukushima disaster caused by far the largest discharge of radioactivity into the ocean ever seen. Much more must be done to understand the accident, Buesseler says. Air programms. The Rise of Nuclear Fear–How We Learned to Fear the Radiation | Guest Blog. I remember going to bed one night when I was 11, seriously afraid I would not be alive in the morning. It was October, 1962, and the frightening cold war between the U.S. and Soviet Union, constantly in the news but mostly abstract to me as a kid, had becoming terrifyingly real. I had watched a stern President Kennedy on TV revealing that Soviet missiles were being installed in Cuba and ordering a blockade of Soviet ships.

There were pictures of the missile sites, and video of confrontations at sea. The world really was on the brink of nuclear war. I was viscerally afraid, and I wasn’t alone. Such tangible at-any-moment existential fear can burn deeply into anyone’s mind, especially the mind of impressionable adolescents, as many baby boomers were back then. There are profound lessons to learn, then, by looking back at the fear that peaked that frightening week in October of 1962, understanding where it came from, and examining what it’s done to us. Crewmen got sick. Very high radiation, little water in Japan reactor. TOKYO (AP) — One of Japan's crippled nuclear reactors still has fatally high radiation levels and much less water to cool it than officials had estimated, according to an internal examination that renews doubts about the plant's stability.

A tool equipped with a tiny video camera, a thermometer, a dosimeter and a water gauge was used to assess damage inside the No. 2 reactor's containment chamber for the second time since the tsunami swept into the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant a year ago. The data collected Tuesday showed the damage from the disaster is so severe, the plant operator will have to develop special equipment and technology to tolerate the harsh environment and decommission the plant, a process expected to last decades.

The other two reactors that had meltdowns could be in even worse shape. The No. 2 reactor is the only one officials have been able to closely examine so far. View gallery In this photo taken by an endoscope and released by Tokyo Electric Power Co. One Year Later: A Fukushima Nuclear Disaster Timeline. 1 Year Later, What Does Fukushima Mean for Nuclear Research? | Guest Blog. Map of nuclear power reactors in the USA (image from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission - How does a Canadian-American professor of uranium mineralogy living in the unassuming American Midwest respond to the one-year anniversary of Fukushima?

He writes a calculated review of what’s known and not known about the behavior of nuclear fuel after a reactor accident. Then he goes back to writing grant proposals, reviewing journal articles and fielding questions from graduate students. Why should you care? Peter Burns, the director of a federally funded Energy Frontier Research Center, has been studying uranium for almost 20 years. In the years that followed, he served on Nuclear Regulatory Commission discussion panels, a National Academy of Sciences panel on nuclear waste and created a research center for the study of actinide materials. Understanding What Happens After We Know What Went Wrong Charting a Course for the Road Ahead Manhattan Project 2.0?

Fukushima's fate inspires nuclear safety rethink - tech - 09 March 2012. The crisis that unfolded at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant after Japan's megaquake and tsunami is rewriting the nuclear safety guide. The European Union, for instance, has ordered a risk assessment of all nuclear power plants in its member states. These assessments are supposed to consider each plant's ability to withstand a full range of potential hazards – from earthquakes and floods to plane crashes and terrorist attacks. The Japanese disaster did bring some positive news. The reactors along Japan's Pacific coast suffered no serious damage from the earthquake, even though its magnitude exceeded the worst-case scenarios assumed in their designs. That bodes well for the ability of reactors worldwide to withstand major earthquakes. But Fukushima Daiichi was doomed by a decision to plan for a maximum tsunami height of only 5.7 metres, well short of the wave of up to 15 metres that engulfed the plant on 11 March 2011.

Shake-proofing Inadequate flood protection Swiss example Recommended by. Fukushima's dirty inheritance - opinion - 09 March 2012. A YEAR on, the world is still feeling the effects of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated eastern Japan. The dual catastrophe is estimated to have killed almost 20,000 people. Yet it is the consequences of the subsequent partial meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which has so far killed no one, that have reached furthest.

Of most immediate relevance are the lessons we have learned - or rather, had reiterated - about how to make nuclear plants safer. Fukushima Daiichi was plunged into crisis because its design included a "single point of failure" - in this case, an inadequate sea wall that allowed the tsunami to knock out multiple critical systems (see "Fukushima's fate inspires nuclear safety rethink" and "Can diverse power backups boost nuclear plant safety?

"). More attention will have to be paid to such local risk factors when designing future plants or upgrading existing ones. There is a growing backlog of defunct reactors waiting to be decommissioned. Japan's Post-Fukushima Earthquake Health Woes Go Beyond Radiation Effects. After the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami crippled Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, worry about the unfolding nuclear accident quickly commandeered international headlines. Even after the situation was brought under relative control over subsequent days and weeks, public concern hung on the threat of radiation almost more than it did than on the tsunami and earthquake themselves, which had killed more than 15,850 people and displaced at least 340,000 more. A year out, public health experts agree that the radiation fears were overblown. Compared with the effects of the radiation exposure from Fukushima, "the number of expected fatalities are never going to be that large," says Thomas McKone, of the University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health.

And some, including Richard Garfield, a professor of Clinical and International Nursing at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, go a step further. Reacting over radiation. Japan too slow in Fukushima health checks-rights group. By Yoko Kubota TOKYO, March 6 (Reuters) - A year after the Fukushima nuclear crisis, Japan's government is still too slow in providing health checks and information to residents, leaving them confused and suspicious of authorities, Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday. "A year on, we are really not seeing basic health services being offered in an accessible way and we are not seeing accurate, consistent, non-contradictory information being disclosed to people on a regular basis," Jane Cohen, a researcher at the New York-based rights group, told Reuters. "People have to at least be equipped with accurate information so that they are evaluating their situation based on real facts.

" The tsunami that hit Japan's Pacific coast last March 11 devastated the Fukushima nuclear power plant, 240 km (150 miles) northeast of Tokyo, causing radiation leaks that contaminated land, air and water and forced tens of thousands to flee. Cohen said mistrust of authorities had grown. Sizing Up Health Impacts a Year After Fukushima. Associated PressMonitoring radiation at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant this week. Health impacts from the radioactive materials released in the Fukushima Daiichi meltdowns will probably be too small to be easily measured, according to experts assembled by the Health Physics Society for a panel discussion on Thursday.

And the area cordoned off by the Japanese government as uninhabitable is probably far too large, the experts said. The panel discussion, at the National Press Club in Washington, is one in a series of events timed to the first anniversary of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident at the nuclear plant in March 2011. While the quake and tsunami killed an estimated 20,000 people, radiation has not killed anyone so far, and members of the Health Physics Society, drawn from academia, medicine and the nuclear industry, suggested that the doses were too small to have much effect. “The doses are just too low,’’ he said.

Dr. Dr. Scientists report back from Fukushima exclusion zone. Patterns of tsunami damage in areas such as Kesennuma, northeast of Fukushima, reveal wave behaviour that could be used to improve defences. The tsunami that crippled Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant almost a year ago was as formidable as initial estimates suggested, according to the first scientific assessment of its impact on the locale. Surveys along 2,000 kilometres of coast have already generated the largest tsunami data set in the world. But no verified data have been obtained from the 20-kilometre-radius restricted zone around the shattered nuclear plant, where scientific fieldwork had previously been barred. On 6 February, however, a seven-strong team set out on a two-day mission to determine the height and inland penetration of the waves that hammered the area less than an hour after a magnitude-9.0 earthquake struck off the coast of northeastern Japan.

But in other places, the flooding left buildings unscathed. Radioactive caesium found in milk powder. Updated Wed 7 Dec 2011, 6:42am AEDT Radioactive caesium believed to have come from the Fukushima nuclear plant has been found in a brand of Japanese baby formula. Caesium levels of up to 31 becquerels per kilogram have been found in baby formula made by the Meiji Corporation. While it is below the government-set allowable limit of 200 becquerels per kilogram, there are concerns that babies are more susceptible to the harmful effects of radiation.

The company suspects a link between the contamination and the meltdowns at the Fukushima nuclear plant, saying hot air used in the drying process may have contained caesium. It is now recalling 400,000 cans of the formula which are believed to have been contaminated. Shares of Meiji Holdings plunged nearly 10 per cent to their lowest close since May 2009 following the news. Cases of excessive radiation in vegetables, tea, milk, seafood and water have stoked anxiety despite assurance from public officials that the levels detected are not dangerous. Radiation levels in Fukushima are lower than predicted - health - 16 November 2011. The fallout from the radiation leak at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor in Japan may be less severe than predicted. Radiology researcher Ikuo Kashiwakura of Hirosaki University, Japan, and colleagues responded immediately to the disaster, travelling south to Fukushima prefecture to measure radiation levels in more than 5000 people there between 15 March and 20 June.

They found just 10 people with unusually high levels of radiation, but those levels were still below the threshold at which acute radiation syndrome sets in and destroys the gastrointestinal tract. Geiger-counter readings categorised all others in the area at a "no contamination level". How did the population of Fukushima prefecture dodge the radioactivity? Gerry Thomas at Imperial College London, director of the Chernobyl Tissue Bank, says the answer is simple.

"Not an awful lot [of radioactive material] got out of the plant – it was not Chernobyl. " Rapid response More From New Scientist More from the web Recommended by. Directly comparing Fukushima to Chernobyl. This Sunday (11 September) marks the six-month anniversary of the triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan. The accident has slipped from the headlines, but new data are coming out all the time. Some of the most recent findings are allowing the best comparison yet of Fukushima with Chernobyl. A lot of media outlets (ourselves included) first made the Fukushima-Chernobyl comparison back in April, when the Japanese revised their estimate of the Fukushima accident—rating it a seven on the seven-point international INES scale. The conclusion most reached at the time was that, although the rating was the same, Fukushima was a much smaller accident. A couple of things have changed since those first reports. First, the Japanese doubled their estimate of the radiation released by Fukushima in June to 7.7×1017 Becquerels (Bq).

With the new Cs-137 data, we can now directly compare the fallout from Chernobyl to Fukushima. But that’s not the whole story. Press. Fukushima. Fukushima investigation reveals failings | World news. Japan's response to the nuclear crisis that followed the tsunami in March was confused and riddled with problems , a report has revealed. The disturbing picture of harried workers and government officials scrambling to respond to the problems at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was depicted in the report, detailing a government investigation. The 507-page interim report, compiled by interviewing more than 400 people, including utility workers and government officials, found that authorities had grossly underestimated tsunami risks, assuming the highest wave would be six metres (20ft). The tsunami hit at more than double that level. The report criticised the use of the term soteigai, meaning unforeseeable, which it said implied authorities were shirking responsibility for what had happened.

Finding alternative ways to bring water to the reactors was delayed for hours because of the mishandling of an emergency cooling system, the report said. World Nuclear News. Battle to stabilise earthquake reactors. Insight to Fukushima engineering challenges. 15/3 Japan's nuclear crisis. Where are the world's nuclear reactors? WNA Advanced Nuclear Database.

Fukushima leak is plugged, TEPCO in more hot water. AlertNet SPECIAL COVERAGE. AlertNet JPN IN GRAPHICS. Station BLACKOUT caused nuclear accident. Chernobyl response. Fukushima Daiichi won't be Chernobyl. Fukushima Will Be Wasteland. What Happens During a Nuclear Meltdown? Fukushima Health Risks Scrutinized. Partial Meltdowns - Explosions. Cracked fuel rods threaten meltdown. Radioactive fuel dumps pose new threat. Radiation from Fukushima. A Time for Discussion... (Energy Collective) The unpalatable truth is that the anti-nuclear lobby has misled us all | George Monbiot. The fear of nuclear. Nuclear Boy - English Subtitles - うんち・おならで例える原発解説. A Personal Journey for Japan. Managing water is Fukushima priority.