Chopperboy

If your doctor sends you to a nuclear medicine department to have your thyroid function tested, we use I-131 to test that. The dose we give you is approximately 111,000 Bq of I-131 to see how much your thyroid takes up, 10,000 times the amount detected in rainwater at SFU.

If you come with thyroid cancer, we treat you with about 5,000,000,000 Bq of I-131. Yes, 5 billion. With a "B."

I wouldn't quote the medical establishment!, they're near the top of the killer list - just a few places behind vehicle accidents. Vioxx alone killed between 88,000 and 139,000, cancer causing hormone replacement therapy made from horse urine, Avandia (heart attacks and fake test results) and the list goes on and on - we could devote a whole thread to the subject. One parallel with the nuclear industry however is the revolving door between regulators (FDA) and industry (Big Pharma).

The grim videos documenting abuse of sub-contract workers by the Japanese nuclear industry.

Thanks for posting Walkingman.

Why does Jetset mention China???

Japan: area around Fukushima declared a no-go zone

Naoto Kan, the Japanese prime minister, has declared the 12-mile evacuation area around the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant a legal no-go zone.

Until now, residents have been advised to leave the area around the plant, which has been leaking radioactivity into the atmosphere and the sea after being damaged in the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. Anyone approaching the zone has been informed by emergency teams in protective clothing of the dangers of continuing their journey.

But from midnight, no one will be allowed in.

Mr Kan announced his decision during a meeting with the governor of the prefecture, Yuhei Sato.

It comes after police announced that more than 60 families were still living within the 12-mile limit. The families will all be forced to leave the area under the new rules.

"The plant has not been stable," Yukio Edano, the Chief Cabinet Secretary, told reporters in Tokyo. "We have been asking residents not to enter the area as there is a huge risk to their safety.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/8465250/Japan-area-around-Fukushima-declared-a-no-go-zone.html

Officials of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) said April 18 that a pool of water about five meters deep had been found in the basement of the building housing the No. 4 reactor. Radiation levels as high as 100 millisieverts per hour were detected on the water's surface.

About 54,000 tons of radiation-contaminated water also sits in the basements of the turbine buildings for the No. 1 to No. 3 reactors.

At the No. 2 reactor, holes have opened in the suppression pool connected to the containment vessel so repairs will be needed before the No. 2 reactor can be submerged. However, there is the possibility that radiation levels of several dozens of sieverts are present near the suppression pool. Such levels would lead to immediate health problems for workers.

NISA official Hidehiko Nishiyama said, "The situation is very serious. It is desirable to lower the level of radiation workers are exposed to by using anything that will shield the radiation as well as by decontaminating the workers. We will have to think of ways to carry that out from now."

http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201104190193.html

A detailed breakdown of the on-site problems

Packbot working inside the reactor building of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station Unit 3.

(pictured on April 17, 2011)

Radiation exposure fears

Tokyo - Authorities were considering restricting access to the evacuation zone around Japan's crippled nuclear plant on Wednesday to limit radiation exposure to residents who may want to return to their homes.

“We are considering setting up 'caution areas' as an option for effectively limiting entry” to the zone, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said.

It was unclear when the ban might be imposed.

About 70 000-80 000 people were living in the 10 towns and villages within 20 kilometres of the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, which has been leaking radiation after a March 11 earthquake and tsunami wrecked its power and cooling systems.

April 20 2011

By MARI YAMAGUCHI and ELAINE KURTENBACH

Your point being?

From the earlier post:

"The U.S.-built robot probes measured radiation doses found levels between the double doors of the airlocks of the reactor buildings were much higher -- 270 millisieverts in the case of reactor No. 1 and 170 millsieverts in No. 3, the agency said."

This indicates very high levels of radiation are present on the reactor side of the secondary door likely breach of containment.

Air lock at 3-Mile Island

Warning on second door

Position of air locks

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency of Japan has reported to a Cabinet Office safety panel that nuclear fuel pellets in the No. 1 to 3 reactors at the quake-hit Fukushima power station are believed to have partially melted.

The report was the first time the agency, an organ of the economy, trade and industry ministry, has acknowledged that nuclear fuel has melted at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.

Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for the agency, told a press conference about the agency's report to the Nuclear Safety Commission. The agency had previously only described the nuclear fuel as having been at least 3 per cent "damaged".

According to Nishiyama, damage to reactors can be described in three phases of increasing severity. In the first phase of initial damage to a reactor's core, the metallic casing surrounding the fuel pellets are damaged but the pellets remain intact. The second phase involves some melting of nuclear fuel. In the third phase, what is known as a meltdown, all the fuel pellets melt and accumulate at the bottom of the containment vessel.

The agency said it now believes the fuel pallets have melted because of the high levels of radiation detected at No. 2 and 3 reactors. Melting fuel pellets also likely led to a hydrogen explosion at the No. 1 reactor, Nishiyama said.

http://www.asianewsnet.net/home/news.php?id=18519

TOKYOa - A Japanese former bureaucrat will resign as an adviser to nuclear plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co., the government said Tuesday, amid criticism of cozy ties between utilities and regulators.

Toru Ishida, the former director of the Natural Resources and Energy Agency, will quit his senior advisory post with TEPCO, the embattled operator of the tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, the government said.

The measure was intended "to avoid causing public suspicion" about unhealthy ties between the companies and their watchdogs, Edano said Monday.

Ishida's career move, although legal, has been criticised as an example of a practice dubbed "amakudari" or "descent from heaven" in which retiring officials take well-paid posts at companies they previously supervised.

Concerns have been raised by Japanese media about close ties between TEPCO, which has been accused of safety breaches and cover-ups in the past, and other ex-bureaucrats who have taken posts with the company.

Ishida, who retired from the agency in August of last year, was hired by Japan's largest power utility firm in January.

http://www.asiaone.com/News/Latest+News/Asia/Story/A1Story20110419-274430.html

In Tokyo, meanwhile, Japan's government took a step toward slowing what critics have called a revolving door between the nuclear industry and the ministry that regulates it. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the government is urging officials of the Ministry of the Economy, Trade and Industry to stop taking jobs with companies that run nuclear plants upon retirement.

"I have consulted with METI and decided to request that government officials to voluntarily refrain from seeking re-employment at electricity companies, and asked electricity companies for their cooperation," Edano told reporters. But he said the ruling Democratic Party of Japan lacks the votes in parliament to make his call a law at this point.

Critics say the practice -- known in Japanese as amakudari, or "descent from heaven" -- creates cozy ties between the government and the nuclear industry at the expense of the public interest. Edano's declaration was "a necessary step but it's not enough," said Tetsunari Iida, a former nuclear engineer who now runs an alternative energy think-tank.

Tokyo Electric is one of the companies that has come under fire for the practice. Company spokesman Hiro Hasegawa told CNN that the company tries to keep some "distance" between itself and the government, but added, "The nuclear industry is a group of specialists. We cannot deny there is close communication."

And Eisaku Sato, a former governor of Fukushima Prefecture and a longtime critic of Japan's largest utility, said the nuclear safety agency should be independent and the government needs "to create a sense of safety built on trust."

"This is a test of Japanese democracy," said Sato, who has been battling corruption charges he says are retribution for his criticism of the industry. "We must make a flawless framework for operating Japan's nuclear power plants, one that the people of the world can feel safe about."

Sato told reporters Monday that Tokyo Electric missed a warning signal at the plant less than a year ago. He said emergency generators failed to start when a power failure in June 2010 cut off cooling systems at reactor No. 2, forcing workers to start the diesel-powered backups manually.

The U.S.-built robot probes measured radiation doses found levels between the double doors of the airlocks of the reactor buildings were much higher -- 270 millisieverts in the case of reactor No. 1 and 170 millsieverts in No. 3, the agency said.

There was no immediate explanation for the much-higher radiation levels recorded in the airlocks, said Hidehiko Nishiyama, the safety agency's chief spokesman.

Nishiyama said running the "Packbots" in reactor No. 3 was difficult because of the amount of debris scattered around the building, but engineers found the building was dry and the temperatures were normal. In unit 1, the robot found a high level of humidity, the explanation for which was not known.

TOKYO — Readings Monday from a robot that entered two crippled buildings at Japan's tsunami-flooded nuclear plant for the first time in more than a month displayed a harsh environment still too radioactive for workers to enter.

The robot, called a Packbot, haltingly entered the two buildings Sunday and took readings for temperature, pressure and radioactivity. More data must be collected and radioactivity must be further reduced before workers are allowed inside, said Hidehiko Nishiyama of Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.

The robots being used inside the plant are made by Bedford, Massachusetts company iRobot. Traveling on miniature tank-like treads, the devices opened closed doors and explored the insides of the reactor buildings, coming back with radioactivity readings of up to 49 millisieverts per hour inside Unit 1 and up to 57 millisieverts per hour inside Unit 3.

TOKYO — The operator of Japan’s crippled nuclear plant laid out a blueprint Sunday for stopping radiation leaks and stabilizing damaged reactors within the next six to nine months.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2011/04/17/AFRfOpwD_story.html?wprss=rss_world

The timetable’s first step focuses on cooling the reactors and spent fuel pools, reducing radiation leaks and decontaminating water that has become radioactive, within three months. The second step, for within six to nine months, is to bring the release of radioactive materials fully under control, achieve a cold shutdown of the reactors and cover the buildings, possibly with a form of industrial cloth.

Nuclear safety officials described the plan as “realistic,” but acknowledged there could be setbacks.

“Given the conditions now, this is best that it could do,” said Hidehiko Nishiyama of the government’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, adding that conditions at the facility remain unstable.

FUKUSHIMA, JAPAN — Even as it struggled to contain the world’s worst nuclear disaster in a quarter-century, Tokyo Electric Power Co. late last month quietly set out big plans for the future: It proposed building two new nuclear reactors at its radiation-spewing Fukushima Daiichi power plant.

“It was just unbelievable,” said Yoichi Nozaki, director general of Fukushima’s Planning and Coordination Department, which oversees energy matters here in the capital of the region most blighted by the biggest nuclear debacle since Chernobyl.

The disarray has sharpened a question that has dogged Tepco since the tsunami slammed into its Fukushima plant: Has the scale of the disaster triggered a managerial meltdown, or is the world’s largest private electric utility simply sticking to the aloof, heedless habits of a corporate behemoth accustomed to getting its way?

Tepco announced that four reactors at the center of the crisis at Fukushima Daiichi will never go back into service. At the same time, it submitted its report to METI that included a proposed timetable for constructing and commissioning two reactors — No. 7 and No. 8 — at the same complex.

The problems are so far "beyond the design capacity" of the plant that the Japanese are working in uncharted territory, said Michael Friedlander, a former senior operator at U.S. nuclear power plants.

"No nuclear power plant has ever considered the inability to get on long-term core cooling for more than a week, much less three weeks," Friedlander said.

"You have to get the recirculation system up and functioning so they can cool that water in the normal way," said Gary Was, a nuclear engineering professor at the University of Michigan and a CNN consultant. Normal cooling systems don't require the massive amounts of water -- around 7 metric tons (1,850 gallons) per hour -- now being poured into the reactors. "That's a big problem," Was said.

Satoshi Sato, a Japanese nuclear industry consultant, called the current line of attack a "waste of effort." Plant instruments are likely damaged and unreliable because of the intense heat that was generated, and pumping more water into the reactors is only making the contamination problem worse, he said.

"There is no happy end with their approach," Sato told CNN. "They must change the approach. That's something I'm sure of 100 percent."

With the tsunami comming Ishizawa, 55, raced to the plant’s central gate. But a security guard would not let him out of the complex. A long line of cars had formed at the gate, and some drivers were blaring their horns.

“Show me your IDs,’’ Ishizawa remembered the guard saying, insisting that he follow the correct sign-out procedure. And where, the guard demanded, were his supervisors?

“What are you saying?’’ Ishizawa said he shouted at the guard. He looked over his shoulder and saw a dark shadow on the horizon, out at sea, he said.

He shouted again: “Don’t you know a tsunami is coming?’’

Ishizawa,is one of thousands of untrained, itinerant, temporary laborers who handle the bulk of the dangerous work at nuclear power plants here and in other countries, lured by the higher wages offered for working with radiation.

Collectively, these contractors were exposed to levels of radiation about 16 times as high as the levels faced by Tokyo Electric employees last year, according to Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency. These workers remain vital to efforts to contain the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plants.

Interviews with about a half-dozen past and current workers at Fukushima Daiichi and other plants paint a bleak picture of workers on the nuclear circuit: battling intense heat as they clean radiation from the reactors’ drywells and spent-fuel pools using mops and rags, clearing the way for inspectors, technicians, and Tokyo Electric employees, and working in the cold to fill drums with contaminated waste.

http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2011/04/10/temporary_nuclear_laborers_paid_little_for_taking_big_risk/

Why are the Japanese so calm in the face of nuclear crisis?

Fear of being accused of spreading "false rumors." Since the outbreak of the nuclear crisis, expressions of huu-hyo (false rumor) and hu-kinshin (indiscretion) appear frequently throughout the Japanese media. A voice that claims the seriousness and the danger of the nuclear crisis is considered to be "spreading huu-hyo" and criticized as hu-kinshin to be a ringleader that enlarges damages caused by the crisis.

An apology from a publisher is one example. The weekly magazine AERA placed on its cover a picture of a man wearing a full-face mask with filters and protective suits, with the headline "Radiation is coming." The cover page intended to convey seriousness of the nuclear disaster, according to the publisher.

However, this event resulted in an apology and resignation of a representative, after the magazine received complaints that they were escalating damages from huu-hyo and intentionally aggravating public fear.

The spread of two words of huu-hyo and hu-kinshin, has, on the whole, functioned to horrify people to argue about the nuclear danger, to discourage to raise their voices against nuclear energy and, in the end, to lead people to go quiet on the nuclear issue.

The people in Japan should, of course, garner praise for their strength, patience, and discipline.

However, the calmness of the Japanese on the nuclear crisis cannot be praised because it is the representation of their passivity, shyness, and indifference to the core problem of nuclear power generation.

http://www.courierpress.com/news/2011/apr/10/calm-patience-not-virtues-in-dealing-with-issues/?partner=yahoo_feeds

Japan Aftershock Leaves Two Dead, Millions Without Electricity

April 8 (Bloomberg) -- Japan’s biggest aftershock since the day of the March 11 earthquake left two dead and millions without power in the areas hit hardest by last month’s tsunami.

The magnitude-7.1 temblor struck at 11:32 p.m. local time yesterday near the epicenter of last month’s quake, the U.S. Geological Survey reported on its website. About 1.9 million households, mostly in Miyagi and Iwate prefectures, remain without electricity as of 1 p.m. today, said Tohoku Electric Power Co., the main supplier to northern Japan.

“Magnitude-7 level aftershocks may continue to occur even as the frequency of aftershocks will likely fall,” said Yoshihiro Hiramatsu, an associate professor specializing in seismology at Kanazawa University. “Aftershocks will continue for a year or so.”

“Indications of new leakage or a change in radiation levels will be the only way they’ll tell if there’s further damage,” Murray Jennix, a nuclear engineer who specialized in radioactive containment leaks and teaches at San Diego State University, said in a telephone interview. “You’ve got cracks that could have been made bigger.”

Nations participating in a conference sponsored by the International Atomic Energy Agency expressed concern over the discharge of water containing a relatively low level of radioactive substances into the sea near the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

In addition to the original agenda, however, representatives from participating nations expressed concern over the discharge of contaminated water into the sea by the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co. They also raised questions concerning the nuclear crisis.

The atmosphere of the meeting clearly illustrated other nations' critical attitude toward Japan, against a backdrop of delays and other problems with the disclosure of information by Japanese organizations and institutions, sources said.

Questions related to the Fukushima No. 1 plant crisis were raised one after another, on such topics as the basic thinking behind Japan's tsunami countermeasures; what Japan's tsunami countermeasures will be in the future; and differences between Japan's quake resistance guidelines and the IAEA's safety standards, Nakamura said.

"I felt (the questions and opinions from other countries' representatives) were not necessarily severe (to Japan)," Nakamura said. "Basically, they just wanted to confirm facts or asked about Japan's basic concept of safety rules," he said.

However, other nations feel strong dissatisfaction toward Japan. A diplomatic source from Vienna said: "Information is slow in coming from Japan."

The IAEA repeatedly has asked Japan to improve the way it conveys information. On Monday the UN agency stationed two additional experts on boiling water reactors in Japan to get the latest information on the Fukushima No. 1 plant situation.

http://www.asianewsnet.net/home/news.php?id=18361

Tokyo (CNN) -- Workers at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station returned to the plant Friday after a strong aftershock forced them to leave a day earlier, the plant's owner said.

The quake forced crews at the plant to evacuate as it rattled northern Japan late Thursday night. They returned to the plant about eight and a half hours later, and no fresh damage to the facility had been reported Friday afternoon, the Tokyo Electric Power Company said.

Before the quake, engineers had been injecting non-flammable nitrogen into the No. 1 reactor containment shell to counter a buildup of hydrogen in the chamber.

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/04/08/japan.nuclear.reactors/index.html?section=cnn_latest

All additional amounts of radiation compound the already harmful levels in the environment.

Since: (1) the start of the first above ground nuclear bomb testing (1950's & 60's), and then later from [2] the contributions of secret nuclear reactor radioactive releases and accidents (1970's up to the present day), collectively their radioactive Fall-Out isotopes influence our environment and food chain - via their half-life - for (3) decades (i.e., Cesium-137, Strontium-90, Tellurium-132 and Yttrium-91/90), and then furthermore for (4) hundreds and even tens of thousands of years (i.e., Americium-243/241, Plutonium-244 and Uranium-235/234).

Thanks to this release of radiation into the global food chain, plus modern day exposures from all sources, the average human being contains 250,000 picocuries of radiation on any given day. Normal background radiation is said to be 0.24 rems per year. Yet, the average U.S. citizen from many man-made as well as natural sources receives 0.36 rems of radiation annually. For example, just one CAT Scan can add 0.69 rems into our tissue at one time. So, we are already receiving above normal background radiation levels before we become exposed to further accidents like Fukushima.

Extremely low levels of radiation which become ever present due to radioactive materials burrowing into our tissues is a far more deadly and insidious form of radiation poisoning and is properly called The Petkau Effect. There is no "safe" level of radiation. Any new amounts added into our systems that invoke the Petkau Effect is playing Russian Roulette.

http://doctorapsley.com/RadiationTherapy.aspx

Edwin Lyman, a senior scientist in the Union Concerned Scientists Global Security Program and an expert on nuclear plant design and the environmental and the health effects of radiation, says that TEPCO's ability to assess the ongoing situation at the plant has "severe deficiencies".

"They do have some instrumentation. They do report some values for pressure and temperature, but there are indicators that are repeatedly unreliable or out of service," says Lyman.

"So, you know, they're flying partially blind."

The crisis, he says, is being dealt with "as more or less symptom-based at this point".

"They're throwing water in what they can't see and hoping that they don't get more radiation out than they're now seeing, you know, and they just have to treat the symptoms, but the only real symptom or the only real cure is more water. So, it's pretty crude."

Tokyo Electric and Japanese regulators believe unit 2 is the source of the highly contaminated water. Plant workers are pouring 8 tons of water (2,100 gallons) into that reactor every hour to keep it cool, and the water that flows out carries extremely high concentrations of radioactive particles.

That highly radioactive fluid is building up in the turbine plant and the service tunnels around the unit, leaving Japanese officials grasping for ways to contain it.

"The incident at Fukushima demonstrates the extraordinary safety standards and robustness of more modern nuclear power stations."

--Malcolm Grimston

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/04/04/nuclear.debate/index.html

Fishing Group Protests Fukushima Radioactive Dump as Tokyo Sales Plummet

A fishing industry group in northern Japan protested Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s decision to dump radioactive water into the sea in Fukushima, saying it may damage their fishery forever.

Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the presence of radioactive iodine "in one sample of fresh fish" prompted authorities to regulate the radiation in seafood for the first time.

While fishing has been forbidden within 20 kilometers (12 miles) of Fukushima Daiichi, there had been no restrictions on seafood, as there were for some vegetables and milk from certain locales. Now, the same radiation standards that apply to vegetables will apply to ocean products as well.

"The "provisional ingestion limit, equivalent to vegetables and applied to fish and shellfish, will take effect immediately," the Cabinet minister said.