Tag: fukushima

Deadly Silence on Fukushima (via Udolicko’s Blog)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

This post discusses the defacto censorship by the Japanese government and TEPCO, the Japanese utility that owns the plants. There are also charges that dangerous levels of plutonium exist around the plant. Since No. 4 reactor ran hotter than any of the other nuclear plants because it was using a hybrid fuel of regular uranium and plutonium, it would only stand to reason that there must be some contamination.

There are also fairly lengthy discussions of Chernobyl, independent journalism and government censorship. It’s lengthy but it has to be to provide so much information.

James Pilant

Deadly Silence on Fukushima I received the following email a few days ago from a Russian nuclear physicist friend who is an expert on the kinds of gases being released at Fukushima. Here is what he wrote: “About Japan: the problem is that the reactor uses “dirty” fuel. It is a combination of plutonium and uranium (MOX). I suspect that the old fuel rods have bean spread out due to the explosion and the surrounding area is contaminated with plutonium which mean … Read More

via Udolicko’s Blog

New fire at Fukushima..pools run dry? (via Follow The Money)

On By southwerkIn business ethics2 Comments

It appears that Fukushima will be generating stories for some time. It seems our old favorite No. 4 reactor is trying out a new crisis on the world.

One of the more interesting parts of the story is that the Japanese government has decided that children living near the plant can have the same exposure as a nuclear plant worker. That’s right, the local children are in the same boat as nuclear workers when it comes to radiation exposure.

Time marches on and as the disaster becomes more and more boring to the public, it slips away from view. But radiation and nuclear disaster don’t depend on publicity to function.

James Pilant

New fire at Fukushima..pools run dry? From March 15 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/world/asia/16fuel.html?_r=1 Even as workers race to prevent the radioactive cores of the damaged nuclear reactors in Japan from melting down, concerns are growing that nearby pools holding spent fuel rods could pose an even greater danger. The pools, which sit on the top level of the reactor buildings and keep spent fuel submerged in water, have lost their cooling systems and the Japanese have been … Read More

via Follow The Money

Japan nuke workers nearing max exposure (via flying cuttlefish picayune)

On By southwerkIn business ethics1 Comment

Flying cuttlefish picayune is staying on the Fukushima story with tenacity. I admire this. I’ve tried to follow it everyday but my recent cable loss knocked me off pattern. (As a writer it is fascinating to watch how your style and approach are varied by things you never would have thought of as having an effect.) Following this blog has recommitted me to following the story and I will begin going back to daily or once every two days posting.

Public domain

I will be going to the international media because our corporate, news of the strange focused, press is fairly useless in dealing with any complex issue in any persistent or intelligent way. It is utterly astonishing how different the press is outside the United States. I have been looking at the Anna Hazare story news coverage in India (you should too) and the way they confront politicians with difficult questions and follow-up gives me pride in the field of journalism, a pride which has been steadily diminishing as I have watched the wretched posturing, incompetence and brazen profit seeking of American media.

My warm thanks to my fellow blogger, flying cuttlefish picayune!

James Pialnt

TOKYO, May 1 (UPI) — Some nuclear workers at Japan’s damaged Fukushima power plant are approaching the maximum allowable annual radiation exposure, power officials said. Prior to the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that badly damaged four of six reactors at Fukushima, Japanese labor law said the maximum radiation nuclear workers could be exposed to per year was 100 millisieverts. Four days after the disaster, the maximum exposure was increased t … Read More

via flying cuttlefish picayune

Adequate backup power at US nukes? NRC chairman not sure (via robertsingleton)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

This is disturbing. Some American power plants use batteries? Don’t earthquakes, tornadoes and floods damage those pretty easily? How long are the batteries good for?

A good number of American plants are as old as the Fukushima plants and based on a virtually identical design. If backup power is not a sure thing and the heat in the reactor goes to a certain point we have hydrogen which can and does cause explosions. If the heat is much worse we get a meltdown. Backup power is an important issue because even when you shut down the power in a reactor it takes some time for the temperature to fall.

James Pilant

Adequate backup power at US nukes? NRC chairman not sure The Wall Street Journal’s MarketWatch just ran an article in which Gregory Jakzcko questioned the readiness of U.S. nuclear power plants to operate in the event of a loss-of-power accident like the one that caused a partial meltdown at Fukushima. MarketWatch reported: In a meeting of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko said existing standards for emergency power might not be “reasonable” given the damage that major cata … Read More

via robertsingleton

Fukushima in Alabama (Averted) (via Say It Ain’t So Already)

On By southwerkIn business ethics3 Comments

I believe that there are a great many problems with nuclear plants in the United States that we do not hear about. This posting supports my point of view.

Why, if reported at all, are these considered local stories? A nuclear disaster renders hundreds, possibly thousands of square mile uninhabitable for the forseeable future. How much of a disaster do you have to have for the American news media to give it priority over the dissolute royal family of England?

Good article. Thanks to Say It Ain’t So Already.

James Pilant

Fukushima in Alabama (Averted) It is so, so telling that this news has not been part of the coverage of the terrible tornadoes in Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia yesterday: A nuclear power plant in Alabama that lost power after violent thunderstorms and tornadoes on Wednesday will be down for days and possibly weeks but the backup power systems worked as designed to prevent a partial meltdown like the disaster in Japan. The Browns Ferry nuclear power plant, one of the biggest … Read More

via Say It Ain’t So Already

A Quarter of a Century Since Chernobyl (via The Truth Journal)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Twenty-five years. Twenty five years to absorb the lessons of the last nuclear disaster and it just didn’t work out. The ad nauseum repeating of the mantra, “It’s different here.” Whether they meant more modern equipment, better management, more incentives, better regulation, it turned out to be nonsense.

Going back to Chernobyl after all these years is not a comforting journey. It is a trip into a ghostly irradiated land measuring 10,800 square miles, a facet of the aftermath of a nuclear disaster carefully unmentioned by the proponents of nuclear power. That’s about a third the size of Panama or five times the size of Rhode Island. Does that make you comfortable?

How much agricultural land can we afford to lose permanently? We need a thorough intelligent discussion of nuclear power in the United States, not back rooms and lobbyists, a public discussion.

This is a good article and has an attached video.

James Pilant

A Quarter of a Century Since Chernobyl A quarter of a century has passed since the worst nuclear accident in history. On April 26, 1986, the Nuclear power plant at Chernobyl, Ukraine, in the then USSR, exploded leaking nuclear radiation about a hundred times the Nuclear explosion at Hiroshima. I cannot think of anything more but to say that the day reminds us why we should be so proud of Nuclear technology. After all, it allows us to make great changes to the way things work naturally … Read More

via The Truth Journal

Chernobyl Stalkers (via L’appel de Fukushima)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

I had heard that the Titanic disaster and the First World War were both predicted by novels, but this is the first that I’ve heard that Chernobyl was predicted by a film.

I pity the poor souls who feel obligated to make a living by stealing high radiation scrap from a nuclear dead zone.

On the other hand, the future may hold that kind of existence for many millions.

James Pilant

Chernobyl Stalkers The people most affected by the explosion of Reactor Number Four on the morning of April 26,1986, soon learned that the event known as Chernobyl was predicted by a feature film made seven years earlier. Stalker, by Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky, explored the limits of our technical explanatory power against the backdrop of a mysterious force that can only be approached on foot, by forest “stalkers” who have learned to accept its risky gifts. … Read More

via L’appel de Fukushima

Media has moved on, but not Japanese (via News and Brews)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

This is the only beer related post having to do with the disasters in Japan that I have found. It’s not bad.

I do agree the Japanese have not moved on. The disaster continues there as recovery is handicapped by the ongoing nuclear problems. American media has a tawdry interest in current events however inconsequential. So, in America, it may well appear that the crisis is over.

No, not for quite some time.

James Pilant

Media has moved on, but not Japanese The 9.0 magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami that hit Japan on Mar. 11 has mostly disappeared from the collective conscious of American mainstream media. Many news outlets have shifted focus to Syria or Yemen–both very important stories in their own right. However, Japan is still recovering from the natural disasters that struck their shores over a month and a half ago. It severely damaged nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Power P … Read More

via News and Brews

TVA plant’s old design brings fresh worries | The Tennessean | tennessean.com (via In Frog Pond Holler)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

It’s definitely true that the old designs need a new look in the aftermath of Fukushima. I’m curious to see how the utility is going to handle this.

James Pilant

Critics argue that safety and reliability issues are raised by the old design, the deterioration of work already done, the cannibalizing of plant parts and a failure to keep tight controls over the site. Some also question the need for another TVA nuclear plant. In the wake of Japan’s nuclear crisis, TVA staff delayed asking for a board vote for funding to complete Bellefonte. Still, more than 500 workers are busy on the site with engineering, as … Read More

via In Frog Pond Holler

Fukushima: Japan’s meta-tragedy – Sandhya Jain (via Bharata Bharati)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

I very much enjoyed this and, in particular, I want to call attention to Wikileaks participation in the continuing controversy over both nuclear power and corruption. This story hardly exists in the United States but has generated considerable press in India.

This backstory is fitted into its place in the larger story of nuclear power in this article. I appreciate that.

However, there is a lot of other material here. This is not the kind of material that the pronuclear press likes to see, they prefer the squishy soft claims of possible radiation damage down the road. These claims they can dismiss as ill founded because it takes years to manifest. This article cites facts and history. That gives it some heft. I hope it gets wider circulation.

James Pilant

Fukushima: Japan’s meta-tragedy - Sandhya Jain Fukushima reinforces the threat posed by the scientific arrogance that the Human Race can create structures more powerful than Nature; Chernobyl was a loud warning after nearly 150 significant radiation leaks at n-stations throughout the world were hidden by the secretive nuclear power industry. – Sandhya Jain The tragedy of the earthquake-tsunami induced failure at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant, eerily close to the 25th anniversary of th … Read More

via Bharata Bharati