Tag: meltdown

Radiation Lies

On By southwerkIn corruption

nuclear reactor pd 1000643523Radiation Lies

What a surprise! It seems both the Japanese government and the United States Navy lied to the sailors aboard the USS Ronald Reagan about how much radiation they were exposed to. Please be aware the Fukushima crisis continues on day after day. The reactors continue to leak radiation. Every day workers have to go in and try to keep the situation under control. It’s a slow-speed crisis demonstrating the power of a nuclear disaster as opposed to other man made destruction.

What kind of ethical judgement was at play here? Surely a high radiation level is going to have long term effects? And in real life, conspiracies of silence only work for so long. 

This is a failure here to discern right from wrong. This is a failure to do everything possible to safeguard the lives of Americans on a rescue mission. And most of all, this is a failure of the Japanese government whose continued lies and incompetence have created an ongoing crisis for which they may be no cure in our lifetimes or even the lifetimes of our children. 

 

James Pilant

US sailors exposed to Fukushima radiation levels beyond Japan’s estimates | Al Jazeera America

Crew members of the USS Ronald Reagan’s March 2011 Fukushima relief mission encountered radiation levels that far exceeded the Japanese government’s estimates, according to a report in the Asia-Pacific Journal.

The revelations contained in the report could have a bearing on the lawsuit against Tokyo Electric Power Company by more than 70 U.S. service members who say they suffer from long-term health effects from their participation in the U.S. navy’s response to the nuclear disaster.

Kyle Cleveland, a Temple University professor based in Japan, obtained documents showing military officials aboard the carrier detected radiation levels that were 30 times greater than normal and significantly greater than what the Japanese government told them to expect.

Navy officials have maintained that the radiation levels service members were exposed to during Operation Tomodachi were not enough to cause health effects.

via US sailors exposed to Fukushima radiation levels beyond Japan’s estimates | Al Jazeera America.

From around the web.

From the web site, Japan Safety.

http://japansafety.wordpress.com/2014/03/01/atomic-suicide-the-tale-of-the-sailors-and-the-seals-climate-viewer-news/

March 11th, 2011 would have begun like any other day for the crew of the USS Ronald Reagan, except this particular day would go down in history, as the world learned of the 9.o earthquake and devastating tsunami that had struck Japan. The ship, which was already relatively close to Japan, would be changing course for the coastline of Honshu to assist in humanitarian efforts needed for the tens of thousands of people now displaced by this enormous disaster. The rest of the 7th fleet would join in the mission as well. In total, 70,000 members of the US military would participate in some way during the course and became known as “Operation Tomodachi”. Tomodachi happens to mean ‘friend’.

Over 1000 miles away, Alaskan ringed seals stretched lazily on ice floes, perhaps aware of a disturbance in the earths’ geomagnetic field, perhaps not. Either way, not much changes from a seals point of view, one day is not much different from another. You wake up, swim around, find food, and go back to sleep. The only time seals deviate from this schedule is if it is mating season, a tsunami is coming, you are being chased by a polar bear or killer whale, or if you have cubs to look after.

In Japan, as the 7th fleet anchored off Honshu, helicopter flights were readied, supplies prepared, gear was checked, and orders received from Naval Command stateside, who were taking their direction from the Japanese government, and later the NRC. What may have first seemed like an in-and-out mission, was immediately and drastically expanded. The widespread damage was much worse than first feared. It would be weeks, even months, that Japan would need help. The sailors prepared themselves accordingly. But it didn’t take long to see this mission may not go as planned. Within the first days, things started going really, really wrong on the ship. You could say, they went rather critical.  As well as a few nearby nuke plants on the coast of Honshu, and especially at Fukushima Daiichi.

Fukushima, Three Years Ago

On By southwerkIn Corpoorate Social Responsibility

NuclearPowerPlantFukushima, Three Years Ago

And still the crisis goes on and on. Every few months, new unsettling information comes out. Every few months, new levels of incompetence emerge.

The reactor continues to leak radioactivity.

They can’t fix it.

Should that make you wonder about the future of nuclear power?

Better yet, what kind of business ethics is it that encourages taking these kinds of risks?

James Pilant

Fukushima: Third Anniversary of the Start of the Catastrophe | Eslkevin’s Blog

With the third anniversary of the start of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear catastrophe coming next week, the attempted Giant Lie about the disaster continues–a suppression of information, an effort at dishonesty of historical dimensions.

It involves international entities, especially the International Atomic Energy Agency, national governmental bodies–led in Japan by its current prime minister, the powerful nuclear industry and a “nuclear establishment” of scientists and others with a vested interest in atomic energy.

Deception was integral to the push for nuclear power from its start. Indeed, I opened my first book on nuclear technology, Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power, with: “You have not been informed about nuclear power. You have not been told. And that has been done on purpose. Keeping the public in the dark was deemed necessary by the promoters of nuclear power if it was to succeed. Those in government, science and private industry who have been pushing nuclear power realized that if people were given the facts, if they knew the consequences of nuclear power, they would not stand for it.”

via Fukushima: Third Anniversary of the Start of the Catastrophe | Eslkevin’s Blog.

From around the web.

From the web site, Nuclear Energy.

http://nuclearenergyblogassignment.wordpress.com/2012/12/08/lets-say-no/

Based on those potential risks and terrible experiences, I cannot agree nuclear power is the best option for generating electricity. Nowadays, we still cannot control nuclear power steadily. Nuclear power is like a savage beast. If it becomes uncontrollable someday, we do not have the capability to control it. There is no perfect safety. We don’t know how serious problems will happen or when the next accident will appear. We cannot bear more catastrophes. We should decrease reliance on nuclear power. I hope scientists can develop new technology to obtain energy or improve other renewable energy and alternative energy resources, like wind power and solar power. We should learn from history to not repeat failure. For public health and for the safety of the environment, we should keep away from this beast.

How Much Strontium-90? We dont’ know?

On By southwerkIn Corpoorate Social Responsibility
From the Department of Defense
From the Department of Defense

How Much Strontium-90? We dont’ know?

As I wrote with some foresight years ago, the Fukushima disaster is going to last for decades. As a business ethics disaster, Fukushima gives fracking a good run for its money, and here’s how: We keep finding out new ways that TEPCO screwed up. That’s right, after enormous failures in management, truth telling and just basic competence, all of them staggering, we keep finding new ones.

Read below about the new one and relish their utterly responsible reason – they were real busy. That is precisely one step above “the dog ate my homework.”

We’re talking Strontium 90, an isotope of the element. Our bodies mistake it for calcium and thus incorporates it into our bone structure. And that’s because we all need silvery radioactive metals deposited right next to our bone marrow so that our production of blood cells can be illuminated by the glow.

So, it seems they got real busy and lost track of how much strontium 90 was being released. No big deal. After all, what is it going to do? – Deposit itself in the bones of adults and in particular children giving  them enhanced opportunities for cancer and leukemia?

Nah. Don’t let that kind of thing worry you. After all, these are the kinds of people running nuclear power all over the world. They’re competent, cool, collected, well-educated businessmen. Not flaky environmentalists, no government officials, no liberal arts trained thinkers, just savvy businessmen who understand the real world, the world of competence, of money, the important stuff. Genetic structure? Screw it. It’s not on the balance sheet. Won’t cost the investors a dime, and that’s where the action is, after all.

Remember the free market can solve all problems. Government interference damages the free market and thus produces inefficiencies which cannot be tolerated. So, therefore, these gentlemen at TEPCO are heroes being unfairly stigmatized. We should get out of their way and let market forces naturally solve the problem.

Just look away. Everything will be fine.

James Pilant

Tepco Says Fukushima Radiation ‘Significantly’ Undercounted – Bloomberg

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (9501) is re-analyzing 164 water samples collected last year at the wrecked Fukushima atomic plant because previous readings “significantly undercounted” radiation levels.

The utility known as Tepco said the levels were undercounted due to errors in its testing of beta radiation, which includes strontium-90, an isotope linked to bone cancer. None of the samples were taken from seawater, the company said today in an e-mailed statement.

“These errors occurred during a time when the number of the samplings rapidly increased as the result of a series of events since last April, including groundwater reservoir leakage and a major leak from a storage tank,” according to the statement.

via Tepco Says Fukushima Radiation ‘Significantly’ Undercounted – Bloomberg.

From around the web.

From the web site, Fukushima News Updates.

http://fukushimanewsupdate.wordpress.com/2013/01/29/mitsubishi-corp-mitsubishi-corporation-to-develop-mega-solar-projects-in-iwaki-fukushima/

Mitsubishi Corp : Mitsubishi Corporation to Develop Mega Solar Projects in Iwaki, Fukushima

Mitsubishi Corporation (MC) is pleased to announce plans for the construction of a new solar power plant* in Iwaki City, Fukushima. The largest of its kind in the Tohoku region, the 12,000-kilowatt facility is expected to start operating from mid-2014. The project forms part of MC’s overall strategic focus of developing its business in the renewable energies sector.

Known as one of the foremost industrial areas in the region and as well for being a major sightseeing area, Iwaki receives the highest amount of sunlight annually within Tohoku. MC is developing the mega solar project with full support from Nippon Kasei, as well as cooperation from the Fukushima Prefecture and Iwaki City governments. MC is simultaneously developing a 6,000-kilowatt mega solar project at the site of Onahama Petroleum Co., Ltd, a joint venture between MC and Tepco in Iwaki. Together, the two projects will constitute 18,000 kilowatts of solar power generation in total at Onahama.

From around the web.

From the web site, Evacuate Fukushima.

http://evacuatefukushimanow.wordpress.com/2014/02/25/welcome-back-to-tamura-city-%E7%94%B0%E6%9D%91%E5%B8%82-fukushima-%E7%A6%8F%E5%B3%B6%E7%9C%8C/

For the first time since the triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant three years ago, the government is lifting an evacuation order in a restricted area, allowing residents to return to their homes.

Residents of an eastern strip of the Miyakoji district of Tamura, Fukushima Prefecture, are being allowed to return as of April 1, the first day of the 2014 fiscal year, government officials said at a meeting Feb. 23. The area lies within 20 kilometers west of where the accident occurred.

One reason the government is rushing to lift evacuation orders for communities affected by the Fukushima nuclear disaster is cost. Tokyo Electric Power Co., which is being lent money by the government’s Nuclear Damage Liability Facilitation Fund to compensate evacuees, is required to continue compensation one year after an evacuation order is lifted. Lifting the orders will hasten the end of those payments.

According to the industry ministry, 1.5 trillion yen ($14.63 billion) has been paid in compensation to evacuees from 11 municipalities as of February.

In addition, decontamination costs will snowball if the government tries to achieve its long-term goal of lowering annual airborne radiation doses to 1 millisievert or less in areas where evacuation orders are in place.

A Reconstruction Agency official said it is unclear whether the long-term goal can be achieved even if the government continues decontamination work.

Prior to the Feb. 23 meeting, a senior Reconstruction Agency official asked Kazuyoshi Akaba, a senior vice industry minister, to explain the government’s policy to evacuees “even if it means rising to your full height and standing firm before residents.”

Akaba and Tamura Mayor Yukei Tomitsuka were tasked with explaining the new policy to the residents.

During a previous meeting in October, Tomitsuka had proposed lifting the evacuation order by November, but residents complained, saying too much contamination remained.

Some evacuees requested additional decontamination work because the radiation levels remained above 1 millisievert in some areas. The government promised to deal with residents who are still worried about high radiation levels on a case-by-case basis.

“If this abnormal situation continues, residents will lose attachment to their hometown and the community will collapse,” Tomitsuka has said.

This Nebraska Nuclear Power Plant Is Surrounded by Floodwaters (via Jewish Nerd)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

There is something about a nuclear plant surrounded by flood waters that is more disturbing that a coal fired plant or any other kind of energy producing facility. What makes it more disturbing is that knowledge in the back of our skull that if things go wrong, the investors aren’t just out an investment, we all will pay a price for such a calamity.

May we live in a world where reason and knowledge are used to make energy decisions.

James Pilant

This Nebraska Nuclear Power Plant Is Surrounded by Floodwaters The good news: Nebraska's Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Station is staying dry despite being surrounded by tremendous Midwestern flooding. The bad news: Nebraska's Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Station is surrounded by tremendous Midwestern flooding, and a history of safety mistakes. Also unsettling, as Boing Boing's Maggie Koerth-Baker points out, is the fact that all our information on the plant's condition is coming from the plant's owner. Very, ver … Read More

via Jewish Nerd

Questioning Authority in Fukushima (via Jim Grisanzio)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

I try to comment for a few paragraphs at least on each post but this writer has an edge I admire. He’s got this story nailed. Please read.

James Pilant

Questioning Authority in Fukushima It’s good to see Fukushima citizens pummel Japanese government officials on the idiotic decision to increase acceptable levels of radiation for children — 20 times the previously permissible standard! That’s according to the New York Times today (link below). It’s just a stunning display of contempt for the health and well being of the people on the part of the government. The video link below from a few weeks ago is most interesting, though. Yo … Read More

via Jim Grisanzio

Coming Clean about Nuclear Power (via boltonnewyork)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

I like this article. It is skeptical but willing to ask a lot of hard questions. I’m willing to give nuclear energy a chance to be part of our nation’s future plans but only if I can trust the industry. So, you can pretty sure I’m opposed to any nuclear plant development since that condition cannot be met. The industry track record is clear. I’ve been pounded with lies, half-truths and assurances that bore no resemblance to reality. Whether or not you believe that the damage caused by the various nuclear incidents justifies abandoning nuclear power, surely you can see that the industry’s credibility is gone?

Not only do we have to contend with industry PR so thin, that the smallest child can see through it, we have the problem of governments being industry captives blurting out even worse nonsense. In the United States, there has been no real changes in planning caused by Fukushima. It’s as if a car of identical make to yours disintegrated on the highway but you just go ahead driving yours.

But there’s more. Disagree with a future of nuclear energy and you get to meet up with the dogs of war, the partisans of a nuclear future. They believe several things – 1) if you are opposed to nuclear energy you are some left leaning tree hugger, 2) you just don’t understand because you’re blinded by anti nuclear propaganda, 3) you don’t grasp the critical need for nuclear power since all the other sources of energy are flawed, and (my very favorite) 4) radiation is all around us, we get it in chest x-rays, scanners in our airports, granite taken from deep in the earth has radiation in it, therefore all of these concerns about radiation are overblown.

This article is intelligent and asks some critical questions, like why is our evacuation zones in case of nuclear accident only ten miles while in Japan a much larger zone was found necessary? That’s a good question.

Let’s hope for more posts from this author.

James Pilant

Coming Clean about Nuclear Power San Onofre nuclear plant in southern California Image: David McNew Getty Images Ever since Japan’s battered Fukushima Daiichi reactor complex began emitting radiation in March, calls to abandon nuclear power have risen in the U.S. and Germany, among other countries. If only it were so simple. Nuclear contributes 20 percent of the U.S. power supply and a significant share in other developed countries. If we gave it up, what would replace it? Pollu … Read More

via boltonnewyork

Potassium Iodide and Radiation (via Rhoda’s Natural Health Blog)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

I have written about potassium iodide before (re-blogged a good source on it). But this is very good. It not only discusses potassium iodide but many other health related issues. I find the author to good at the craft of writing and very well-informed in these matters.

I am not medically or scientifically trained. In this case, I am happy to defer to an expert.

James Pilant

My thanks to Rhoda’s Natural Health Blog.

Potassium Iodide and Radiation The recent events in Japan are devastating and have hit some of us quite personally. My heart goes out to all those there struggling with the situation. Even though it has been two months, Japan still struggles with many small aftershocks, and with recovering from the devastation. Understandably, some of my patients have expressed concern about the possibility of excess radiation reaching our area from Japan, and wondering what we should do about … Read More

via Rhoda’s Natural Health Blog

Italy’s Great Nuclear Swindle (via Aletho News)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Seldom has a politician been so up front about his contempt for the masses –

From the essay –

On April 26th, the 25th anniversary of the catastrophic Chernobyl accident, Berlusconi held a press conference with French president Nikolay Sarkozy in Rome. At this press conference Berlusconi made his radioactive intentions clear for all. “We are absolutely convinced that nuclear energy is the future for the whole world,” he said. He went on to detail how recent polls showed that the referendum to block nuclear power for decades to come could pass at this time and that by temporarily suspending Italy’s return to nuclear program the issue would be revisited when the Italian voters had been “calmed down” and returned to the realization that Nuclear Energy was the most viable and safe way to produce electricity. He went on to explain how the “leftists and ecologists” had manipulated the emotions of the Italian voters after Chernobyl and penalized the Italian people who have to pay higher electric rates than France that operates 58 nuclear power plants. Berlusconi explained that the “situation in Japan had scared the Italian voters” and that the “inevitable return to nuclear power in Italy” would not be abandoned nor would the collaborations between Enel and Eletricite de France.

You see voters have no wisdom and judgment. When they err by disagreeing with you, for instance, their failure to realize that nuclear power is “viable and safe,” that can be fixed. If you have the media, you just patiently convince them of your point of view. You don’t worry about their judgment because there is nothing that cannot be fixed by good PR.

It would be difficult to find more open contempt for the democratic process or the facts of the situation. If nuclear power is going to be safe, there is some work that is going to have to be done. If that isn’t obvious based on the last twenty years, where have you been hiding?

James Pilant

The Radioactive Dictatorship of Silvio Berlusconi By MICHAEL LEONARDI – CounterPunch – May 13, 2011 Italy’s democracy is in tatters as Silvio Berlusconi and his ruling right-wing coalition work to block a citizen’s referendum that would repeal the decision of the Berlusconi government to return to nuclear energy production on the peninsula. Italy has not produced nuclear energy since 1990 and recent polls indicate that more than 75 % of Italians … Read More

via Aletho News

Nuclear Collapse Looms? Fukushima Reactor No. 4 “Leaning” (via RT)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

What are the business ethics problems revealed in this particular news article? First we have a with holding from the residents of critical information about their exposure to radiation. Second, we have worker safety issues on a very large scale. Workers have already died at the site. Third, we have a continuous underestimate of the radiation being released. It seems every time, TEPCO gives the public radiation numbers, it is later discovered to be too low.

It seems that the Japanese government and the utility, TEPCO, are in full damage control mode. They now hold one press conference a week. They invite only establishment press. They limit access to the site, not so much for safety’s sake but to prevent independent coverage.

As a business ethics disaster, these events will be featured in textbooks for generations.

James Pilant

Radioactive strontium detected at Fukushima plant (via )

On By southwerkIn business ethics

The more kinds of radioactive material can be reasonably assumed to mean more leakage from the plant. Fortunately strontium is bad but not as bad as many other nuclear deposits.

James Pilant

Radioactive strontium detected at Fukushima plant Japan Broadcasting Corporation Tokyo Electric Power Company has detected high levels of radioactive strontium in soil inside the compound of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Strontium can cause cancer and like calcium it tends to collect in bones once humans inhale it. Up to 570 becquerels of strontium 90 per kilogram of dry soil were detected in samples from 3 locations. They were taken on April 18, about 500 meters from the N … Read More

via