TEPCO tries to Cover Up Nuclear Fuel Removal Problems at Fukushima

Remove TEPCO Before Removing Fuel

Video Source: Fairewinds Energy Education

http://fairewinds.org/podcast/remove-tepco-removing-fuel

Fairewinds has fielded a number of questions regarding the removal of the fuel rods from the spent fuel pool in Unit 4 at Fukushima Daiichi. Today’s video shows Arnie debunking TEPCO’s animated film point by point, and highlights the issues TEPCO will have removing the fuel rods. TEPCO needs to be removed as the organization overseeing the cleanup of the site prior to the removal of the fuel rods.

Please visit the Fairewinds Energy Education website and consider donating at the following link: http://fairewinds.org/donate/
 

Shut down all nuclear power plants! – Dr. Helen Caldicott

Video Source: Russia Today

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-Of-3VontE

Dr Helen Caldicott answers questions on the effects of Radiation from the ongoing meltdowns at Fukushima Japan and the impending disaster that Japan & TEPCO will unleash on the Northern Hemisphere around the World with any error in the removal of nuclear material at Fukushima plant 4. TEPCO and the Japanese government are refusing any help by experts, and are playing with the future of life on our planet by their absolute arrogance and focus on financial cost rather than saving life.

Google Hangout with one of the most articulate and passionate advocates of citizen action to remedy the nuclear and environmental crises Dr Helen Caldicott.

Important Links:

Dr Helen Caldicott – Official Website

http://www.helencaldicott.com/
Fairewinds Energy Education
http://fairewinds.org/


 

Japan’s Triple Meltdown: Current Info & Tour of Problems at Fukushima

Source Video: Global Research

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfkxEmCxHMo

Each week Fairewinds receives many questions about the ongoing tragedy unfolding in Japan as a result of the triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Join us as Fairewinds' Chief Engineer Arnie Gundersen highlights the many problems facing Japan as he takes you on a tour of the Fukushima Daiichi site by combining satellite video, animated graphics and photos to create a comprehensive and easy to follow video tour.

Original Video Post: Fairewinds

http://fairewinds.org/media/fairewinds-videos/tour-fukushima-daiichi

Please visit Fairewinds for more info.

http://fairewinds.org/

 

Humankind’s Most Dangerous Moment: Fukushima Fuel Pool at Unit 4. “This is an Issue of Human Survival.”

 

The world community must now take charge at Fukushima

By: Harvey Wasserman

http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/7/2013/1985
Source: Global Research
http://www.globalresearch.ca/humankinds-most-dangerous-moment-fukushima-fuel-pool-at-unit-4/5350779
 
We are now within two months of what may be humankind’s most dangerous moment since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

There is no excuse for not acting. All the resources our species can muster must be focussed on the fuel pool at Fukushima Unit 4.

Fukushima’s owner, Tokyo Electric (Tepco), says that within as few as 60 days it may begin trying to remove more than 1300 spent fuel rods from a badly damaged pool perched 100 feet in the air. The pool rests on a badly damaged building that is tilting, sinking and could easily come down in the next earthquake, if not on its own.

Some 400 tons of fuel in that pool could spew out more than 15,000 times as much radiation as was released at Hiroshima.

The one thing certain about this crisis is that Tepco does not have the scientific, engineering or financial resources to handle it. Nor does the Japanese government. The situation demands a coordinated worldwide effort of the best scientists and engineers our species can muster.

Why is this so serious?

We already know that thousands of tons of heavily contaminated water are pouring through the Fukushima site, carrying a devil’s brew of long-lived poisonous isotopes into the Pacific. Tuna irradiated with fallout traceable to Fukushima have already been caught off the coast of California. We can expect far worse.

Tepco continues to pour more water onto the proximate site of three melted reactor cores it must somehow keep cool.Steam plumes indicate fission may still be going on somewhere underground. But nobody knows exactly where those cores actually are.

Much of that irradiated water now sits in roughly a thousand huge but fragile tanks that have been quickly assembled and strewn around the site. Many are already leaking. All could shatter in the next earthquake, releasing thousands of tons of permanent poisons into the Pacific.

The water flowing through the site is also undermining the remnant structures at Fukushima, including the one supporting the fuel pool at Unit Four.

More than 6,000 fuel assemblies now sit in a common pool just 50 meters from Unit Four. Some contain plutonium. The pool has no containment over it. It’s vulnerable to loss of coolant, the collapse of a nearby building, another earthquake, another tsunami and more.

Overall, more than 11,000 fuel assemblies are scattered around the Fukushima site. According to long-time expert and former Department of Energy official Robert Alvarez, there is more than 85 times as much lethal cesium on site as was released at Chernobyl.

Radioactive hot spots continue to be found around Japan. There are indications of heightened rates of thyroid damage among local children.

The immediate bottom line is that those fuel rods must somehow come safely out of the Unit Four fuel pool as soon as possible.

Just prior to the 3/11/11 earthquake and tsunami that shattered the Fukushima site, the core of Unit Four was removed for routine maintenance and refueling. Like some two dozen reactors in the US and too many more around the world, the General Electric-designed pool into which that core now sits is 100 feet in the air.

Spent fuel must somehow be kept under water. It’s clad in zirconium alloy which will spontaneously ignite when exposed to air. Long used in flash bulbs for cameras, zirconium burns with an extremely bright hot flame.

Each uncovered rod emits enough radiation to kill someone standing nearby in a matter of minutes. A conflagration could force all personnel to flee the site and render electronic machinery unworkable.

According to Arnie Gundersen, a nuclear engineer with forty years in an industry for which he once manufactured fuel rods, the ones in the Unit 4 core are bent, damaged and embrittled to the point of crumbling. Cameras have shown troubling quantities of debris in the fuel pool, which itself is damaged.

The engineering and scientific barriers to emptying the Unit Four fuel pool are unique and daunting, says Gundersen. But it must be done to 100% perfection.

Should the attempt fail, the rods could be exposed to air and catch fire, releasing horrific quantities of radiation into the atmosphere. The pool could come crashing to the ground, dumping the rods together into a pile that could fission and possibly explode. The resulting radioactive cloud would threaten the health and safety of all us.

Chernobyl’s first 1986 fallout reached California within ten days. Fukushima’s in 2011 arrived in less than a week. A new fuel fire at Unit 4 would pour out a continuous stream of lethal radioactive poisons for centuries.

Former Ambassador Mitsuhei Murata says full-scale releases from Fukushima “would destroy the world environment and our civilization. This is not rocket science, nor does it connect to the pugilistic debate over nuclear power plants. This is an issue of human survival.”

Neither Tokyo Electric nor the government of Japan can go this alone. There is no excuse for deploying anything less than a coordinated team of the planet’s best scientists and engineers.

We have two months or less to act.

For now, we are petitioning the United Nations and President Obama to mobilize the global scientific and engineering community to take charge at Fukushima and the job of moving these fuel rods to safety.

You can sign the petition at: http://www.nukefree.org/crisis-fukushima-4-petition-un-us-global-response

If you have a better idea, please follow it. But do something and do it now.

The clock is ticking. The hand of global nuclear disaster is painfully close to midnight.Harvey Wasserman is Senior Editor of the Columbus Free Press and Free Press. He edits Nuke Free.

For now, we are petitioning the United Nations and President Obama to mobilize the global scientific and engineering community to take charge at Fukushima and the job of moving these fuel rods to safety.

 

Antiatom Japanese rally in thousands

Source: Russia Today

Thousands of activists have shown up for a protest around Japan’s parliament, demanding that the government not restart the nuclear power plants, which have been put on hold after last year’s Fukushima nuclear disaster.

­Many of the protesters came to Japan's parliament complex wearing gas masks. They chanted anti-nuclear slogans and were beating on yellow oil-drums. They also voiced their anger at the restart of two plants earlier this month.

Organizers put the number of those who came at 200,000 people, though police estimated the lower figure of 17,000.

The information about details of the planned protest was actively being spread via Twitter and social networks.

The main aim was to attract ordinary people’s attention to the problem.

In comparison, the first rally in a string of peaceful events fueled by fears over the safety of nuclear power on March 29 gathered only 300 people.

Protesters have grown increasingly frustrated with Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s order to restart two reactors – No. 3 and nearby No. 4 – in June.

The public fears over the risks of nuclear power are at decades high after the meltdown at the Fukushima Daichi power plant, which happened after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

Several probes into the accident revealed the poor state of both industry safety standards and governmental regulation of the nuclear power industry.

Prior to the disaster Japan received a third of its electricity output from nuclear power. After Fukushima, all of the country’s operational reactors were suspended for safety inspections. All 50 working reactors in Japan went offline in May for “routine checks”.

The government says Japan’s economy cannot function without the restart of reactors, explaining that people's living standards could not be maintained without nuclear energy.

Just days before the latest protest, on Friday, activists gathered outside Prime Minister Noda’s residence

Radioactive Tuna from Fukushima Found Off California Coast

Original Source: Jessica Menton - IBTV

Source: Global Research TV

On Tuesday the Japanese government said it expected it would have to look at the international monitoring of radioactive fish products following the discovery of a tainted tuna caught off the coast of southern California, but first needed more information.

Low levels of nuclear radiation from the tsunami-damaged Fukushima power plant have turned up in bluefin tuna off the California coast, suggesting that these fish carried radioactive compounds across the Pacific Ocean faster than wind or water can. Scientists reported on Monday small amounts of cesium-137 and cesium-134 were detected in 15 tuna caught near San Diego in August 2011, about four months after these chemicals were released into the water off Japan's east coast.

Japan's chief cabinet secretary said the government still needs more information on this issue. Japan said it will continue to research and monitor the effects of the radioactive material released into the ocean around Fukushima since the March 11, 2011 tsunami crippled and caused a meltdown at the reactors owned by Tokyo Electric Company.

Researchers said in a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that the amount of radioactive cesium found in the fish off California isn’t thought to be damaging to people if consumed, the but the findings are expected to cause a stir amongst sushi aficionados around the world. Judging by the size of the bluefin tuna the U.S. scientists sampled - they averaged about 15 pounds (6 kg) - the researchers knew these were young fish that had left Japanese water about a month after the accident.

Most of the radiation was released over a few days in April 2011, and unlike some other compounds, radioactive cesium does not quickly sink to the sea bottom but remains dispersed in the water column, from the surface to the ocean floor.

Putting power over public safety? Japan to restart two nuclear reactors

This picture taken on April 12, 2012 shows the third (R) and fourth reactor building of the Ohi nuclear power plant of the Kansai Electric Power Co (KEPCO) at Ohi town in Fukui prefecture, western Japan (AFP Photo/Jiji Press/Japan Out)

Source: Russia Today
http://rt.com/news/nuclear-japan-reactors-fukushima-196/

The Japanese town of Ohi has deemed it necessary to restart its two nuclear reactors, citing imminent power shortages. But Robert Jacobs, a professor of nuclear history, told RT the move is meant to avert investment losses in the nuclear sector.

The Ohi town assembly defended the decision to put the reactors back online, citing potential damage to the local economy and the rise in unemployment the prolonged halt of the reactors could cause. The decision will become official when the assembly convenes on Monday.

However, activists argue that a transfer to greener energy sources would boost local economies and create far more jobs in the long-term.

Japan is facing serious energy shortfalls this summer after the decision to shut down the last of its 53 reactors on May 5.

In response to the potential crisis, the Japanese central government has been trying to convince towns hosting atomic stations to approve their reactivation.

But Robert Jacobs, a professor of nuclear history and culture at the Hiroshima Peace Institute, told RT the push to reopen the plants is the perfect example of a government putting money before human health.

RT: Greenpeace has called the government's push to restart nuclear plants “reckless.” Are these reactors safe to reactivate?

Robert Jacobs: No, these reactors are not safe to restart. Japan remains the most active seismic nation on Earth and there are many earthquake faults under or nearby many of the reactors, and many others are in tsunami zones. Additionally, there have been repeated and blatant disregard for safety procedures at many Japanese nuclear plants. None of these issues have been addressed during the shutdowns, and in fact the worst of these (seismic activity and tsunami threats) cannot be addressed or improved. In order for nuclear power plants not to pose a threat they must be in a secure location and operated flawlessly. The first of these criteria cannot be achieved, and the second has not.



'The Japanese government is going to push as hard as it can to restart the reactors.'

RT: Is it necessary for Japan to restart these two reactors in the face of this summer’s predicted energy shortages?

RJ: No. Japan can meet these predicted shortages through a combination of conservation and other sources of energy. Many Japanese companies have taken steps to reduce power usage in ways that should have been practiced all along. These have significantly reduced demand and allowed the companies to continue to operate at current levels while reducing their power needs. Currently Japan is importing more coal and gas to make up for shortfalls in nuclear power production. So there is no short term crisis in terms of meeting the demands of power customers.

RT: Do you think this will be the beginning of a domino effect, and the government will begin to reactivate other stations?

RJ: The government of Japan and the power companies are dedicated to restarting the reactors. This is primarily for two reasons. First, they believe that the longer the nuclear plants remain offline, the harder it will be to eventually restart them. So they are determined to restart the reactors just to keep them viable. This is a political choice. The second reason is because the power companies have invested so much money into the nuclear power plants (half of their assets for some of them) that they do not want to see those investments become worthless. So to preserve the value of their assets, they will push very hard to restart the nuclear reactors, whether they are safe or not. This is an economic choice. But the people of Japan are almost entirely against restarting the nuclear plants and that is why they remain offline. They don't believe the assurances of the government, the power companies, and also the media. Also, they see that the nuclear power plants are all offline and the world has not come to an end as many in the government and power companies said would happen.

RT: Given that Japan relied on nuclear energy for 30% of its power prior to the Fukushima disaster, is a nuclear-free future viable?

RJ: Yes. This would be the case eventually anyways, even if Fukushima had never happened. The nuclear power industry has been in its death throes for some time now. No new plant has been built for a long time. They are not actually very profitable investments. So if no new plants were to be built, sooner or later all of the current plants would shut down and Japan would have entered a non-nuclear future regardless. The meltdowns have just hastened the inevitable. The current debate is about whether or not to focus on maximizing the return to the power companies on their investments before this happens. But at the cost of public safety this is a ridiculous choice to make.



'Previously most Japanese people had faith in the wisdom and honesty of authorities such as the government, larger corporations and the media, that faith has been broken…"

RT: What do you think the government’s mixed energy program, due to be unveiled this summer, will entail?

RJ: On this I am not well-informed, but my guess is that they will attempt to soften the push to restart the reactors by couching it in a larger "mixed" energy program. There is no choice but to include several sources of energy, so there is already a mixed program. But when they formally introduce such a program, it will be a way to include restarting the nuclear power plants being made to seem like a small part of the program – when it is the entire purpose of this repackaging of the image.

RT: What is the Japanese government doing to allay the fears of a nuclear-weary population?

RJ: The Japanese government is going to push as hard as it can to restart the reactors. They have already been doing this. They claim that Japan will become a Third World nation if it does not restart the reactors. They claim that there will be widespread blackouts and that corporations will leave the country if the plants are not restarted. But there has been a big change here in Japan. Whereas previously most Japanese people had faith in the wisdom and honesty of authorities such as the government, larger corporations and the media, that faith has been broken and the Japanese people are no longer so easily swayed by such doom and gloom pronouncements and will not be easily manipulated. This is going to be a very contentious standoff

Fukushima Daiichi: The Truth and the Future

Source: Fairewinds Energy Education
http://fairewinds.org/content/fukushima-daiichi-truth-and-future



As part of a presentation in Kansai, Japan on May 12th 2012, Maggie and Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Energy Education answered specific questions asked by symposium organizers regarding the condition of the spent fuel pool at Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4. Fairewinds analyzes the explosion at Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3. Also, Arnie discusses what the future may hold for Japan if it chooses a path without nuclear power.

Video transcript

Transcript Coming Soon. Thanks

US Draws Russian Fire, Signing Missile Defense Deal

Prague - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice signed Tuesday what she called a "landmark" missile defense deal with the Czech Republic, drawing immediate condemnation and threats from Russia. The accord permits the siting of a tracking radar station on Czech soil as part of an extended US missile shield that Washington says is necessary to ward off potential attacks by so-called "rogue" states such as Iran. Moscow immediately threatened to respond with "military resources" to what it sees as a threat on its doorstep from the proposed system.

"If a US strategic anti-missile shield is deployed near our borders, we will be forced to react not in a diplomatic fashion but with military resources," a statement from the foreign ministry said.

But the United States said Wednesday that Russia and Europe should be "equal partners" in its planned missile defense.

"We seek strategic cooperation on preventing missiles from rogue nations, like Iran, from threatening our friends and allies," said White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe. "We will continue to have a dialogue with the Russians."

"We want to design a system between the United States, Russia and Europe, with everyone participating as equal partners," Johndroe said on the margins of a rich nation summit at Toyako in northern Japan.

"It's truly a landmark agreement," Rice said after signing the accord with Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg. "It is an agreement that is befitting for friends and allies who face a common threat in the 21st century."

During her talks in Prague, Rice charged that Iran's work to build longer-range missiles was proceeding "apace" while at the same time it was defying international calls to halt sensitive nuclear technology.

"Ballistic missile proliferation is not an imaginary threat," the top US diplomat warned.

Rice also reiterated Washington's position that the radar station was not aimed at Russia and instead served as a "building block" for not just Czech and US security but for the "international community as a whole."

The United States wants the radar twinned with interceptor missiles in neighbouring Poland, although negotiations with Warsaw have becomed bogged down with Polish demands for additional security guarantees.

Rice said she thought it made no sense to visit Poland during her current tour of Europe because gaps remained in the negotiations.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had already clashed with US President George W. Bush over missile defence at their first face-to- face meeting, during the G8 summit in Japan on Monday.

Analysts say the Russians fear not only a potential long-term threat to their own nuclear deterrent and the security of their airspace but also associate the shield with NATO's enlargement to include Ukraine and Georgia.

NATO endorsed the US missile defense plan at its April summit in Bucharest.
The US has in the past suggested that Russian inspectors could visit the anti-missile sites, as long as Prague and Warsaw agreed.

"We want the system to be transparent to the Russians," Rice insisted Tuesday.
Protestors from Greenpeace, who fear the missile shield will trigger a new arms race, unrolled a massive image of a target on one of the hills overlooking Prague ahead of Rice's arrival.

Opinion polls regularly show around two-thirds of Czech opposed to hosting the US radar.

Around 2,000 demonstrators gathered in Prague's central Wenceslas Square, with banners proclaiming "No to the Radar" and "Resign."

But Schwarzenberg expected the deal to be ratified by parliament.

"There are sufficient lawmakers who are sufficiently aware of their responsibility and will go forward in strength during the voting," he told reporters.
Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek said the deal reflected a "joint desire to protect the free world."

Prague was the first leg of a three-country tour that will take Rice to Bulgaria and Georgia where she will renew US support for Tbilisi's bid for NATO membership - another bone of contention with Moscow.

Truthout link
http://www.truthout.org/article/us-draws-russian-fire-signing-missile-defence-deal