New radiation highs at Fukushima

From Mike Ruppert ---

Dated today, about four hours ago. -- I think Fukushima is competing with Syria to be the coup de grace for human industrial civilization. As bad as Syria is, my gut is telling me to keep my eyes on Fukushima first. That 6.9, 400 km off of Tokyo has me very concerned. -- Reactor 4 could fall any time now and there is no remotely plausible plan even articulated to remove the spent fuel rods.

Frankly, I do not believe it is possible. And, in any event, it will never happen with the world distracted by Syria and wasting its energy and resources there. Fukushima is a human problem, not a Japanese problem.

Radiation Levels Spike Around Contaminated Tanks At Fukushima Nuclear Plant

Huffington Post,

3 September, 2013

TOKYO, Sept 4 (Reuters) - Radiation readings around tanks holding contaminated water at the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant have spiked more than 20 percent to their highest level, Japan's nuclear regulator said, again raising questions about the clean-up of the worst atomic disaster in 27 years.

Readings at the Fukushima Daiichi plant showed radiation as high as 2,200 millisieverts (mSv), the Nuclear Regulation Authority said, up from 1,800 mSv at the weekend. Exposure to radiation of those levels would be enough to kill an unprotected person within hours.

This is adding weight to nuclear physicist Chris Busby's hypothesis that an uncontrolled chain-reaction is taking place and venting into the atmosphere.

This also suggests that the situation is deteriorating rapidly.

"The readings taken by the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) just above the ground near tanks at the Fukushima Daiichi plant showed as much as 2,200 millisieverts (mSv) present, surpassing the previous high measure of 1,800 mSv found just four days prior. Both levels are potent enough to kill an unprotected human within hours."  

---Mike Ruppert

Radiation Levels Spike Around Contaminated Tanks At Fukushima Nuclear Plant

Radiation levels around tanks holding contaminated water at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan have hit a new high, officials with Japan’s nuclear regulator said Wednesday.

RT,

4 September, 2013

The readings taken by the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) just above the ground near tanks at the Fukushima Daiichi plant showed as much as 2,200 millisieverts (mSv) present, surpassing the previous high measure of 1,800 mSv found just four days prior. Both levels are potent enough to kill an unprotected human within hours.

NRA officials say the area of strong radiation is highly concentrated and can be easily shielded. The tanks holding the contaminated water sit on a hill above the Pacific Ocean. Last week, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) disclosed that at least one of the 1,060 temporary tanks sprang a leak, discharging as much as 300 tons of radioactive liquid containing large amounts of cesium.

Following the incident, the NRA raised the rating of the water leak to Level 3, a "serious incident" on the international scale of radioactivity. The severity of the leak was previously classified as Level 1, an “anomaly.”

TEPCO said on Monday that it might have to dump contaminated cooling water from the plant into the Pacific, local media reported.

On Tuesday, Japan announced that it will pledge 47 billion yen (US$473 million) to help TEPCO contain further leaks of radioactive water.

"Tokyo Electric has been playing a game of whack-a-mole with problems at the site,” Trade and Economy Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said in a televised interview where the plan was first mentioned.

The plan to deal with the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima plant, which was besieged by a massive earthquake and tsunami in March 2011, includes the construction of an underground wall worth US$320,000 to contain groundwater flows. The building of the wall will entail freezing a perimeter of earth around the damaged reactors to stop the groundwater from mixing with water being used to cool the melted fuel rods.

Fukushima Disaster Leaves Hundreds of Whales Radiated to Death

National Report,

3 September, 2013

On August 31st, four days ago the National Report ran the story… Fukushima Crisis Escalates Tons of Radioactive Waste Released into the Pacific Causes Ocean to Boil…. Since then we have been taking calls and emails from people all over the world wanting to confirm our story.

Two days after running the story we received an email from the World Nuclear Association, the mouthpiece of the nuclear industry who runs the website: www.world-nuclear-news.org, demanding we remove the story as it had resulted in a rush of people contacting this organization for more information. Per our policy however we refused to comply.

Workers at Fukushima Look at Leaking Nuclear Waste Escaping into Pacific Ocean 

Due to the great deal of concerns and questions people have since the story broke and the fact that the world now knows that Japan has been anything but forthcoming with the truth the National Report sent it’s Editor-in-Chief Nigel Covington, to Fukushima to get to the bottom of the real Fukushima story.

New revelations coming out of Japan just days ago after the government took charge of this global emergency two years after the March 11, 2011 nuclear plant catastrophe it is clear that the government has intentionally failed to report the extent of the disaster to the people of the world. Nigel is in Fukushima now and we have received his first report on the disaster which follows.

<Fukushima> Reporting from the village of Fukushima I was shocked to find on my arrival that hundreds of whale carcasses were found along the beach early this morning which now extend up and down the shore as far as I can see.

The scene is absolutely devastating especially since no word of this latest crisis has been reported to the Japanese people or to the rest of the world. In fact the Japanese government has remained silent about today’s latest events.

Local residents claim they were told not to worry as the nuclear plant was brought under control shortly after the March 11, 2011 incident and there was little to no radiation concerns.

But what I’m hearing from experts and scientist here today is that they estimate 219,000 tons of nuclear waste has leaked into the Pacific Ocean over the past two years which up until 14 days ago TEPCO had kept a secret. After it was reported that at 300 tonnes (300 long tons; 330 short tons) of “heavily contaminated water” has been leaking from a storage tanks into the ocean daily. 

They also state the ground water in the region has been contaminated with high levels of radiation, but since the government stepped in to take control of the site relieving TEPCO the government has said little about the events taking place here.

It is an outrage for the government to remain silent. Two scientist I spoke to on the beach tell me maybe the government has been silent because no one can yet begin to image the impact this debacle will have locally as well as globally. 

Scientists on the site admit this is a major event but they too can only speculate on what will come tomorrow.

Nigel J. Covington III

Fukushima

Nigel J. Covington, III, is a lifelong resident of Vancouver, Washington. He graduated from Columbia River High School before attending Washington State University. Nigel is the Editor-in-Chief for the National Report and currently resides in Hazel Dell, Washington. Nigel is on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/nigel.covington.7 You can email Nigel at: write_nigel@yahoo.com -

Fukushima: Radiation Measurements So High they had to be Redacted: Plume-Gate

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f26AbW4WwwU

Fukushima Meltdown Airborne for Thousands of Years Update 9/2/13

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDg8KqT589s&feature=c4-overview&list=UUQHopfPwfFjn37JgO1l-axgnz

What a sick joke! They are talking about Japan hosting the Olympics!

Japan to fund costly ice wall around Fukushima reactors to contain radioactive water leaks

Reading Eagle,

3 September, 2013

The Japanese government announced Tuesday that it will spend $470 million on a subterranean ice wall and other steps in a desperate bid to stop leaks of radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant after repeated failures by the plant's operator.

The decision is widely seen as an attempt to show that the nuclear accident won't be a safety concern just days before the International Olympic Committee chooses among Tokyo, Istanbul and Madrid as the host of the 2020 Olympics.

The Fukushima Dai-ichi plant has been leaking hundreds of tons of contaminated underground water into the sea since shortly after a massive 2011 earthquake and tsunami damaged the complex. Several leaks from tanks storing radioactive water in recent weeks have heightened the sense of crisis that the plant's owner, Tokyo Electric Power Co., isn't able to contain the problem.

"Instead of leaving this up to TEPCO, the government will step forward and take charge," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said after adopting the outline. "The world is watching if we can properly handle the contaminated water but also the entire decommissioning of the plant."

The government plans to spend an estimated 47 billion yen ($470 million) through the end of March 2015 on two projects - 32 billion yen ($320 million) on the ice wall and 15 billion yen ($150 million) on an upgraded water treatment unit that is supposed to remove all radioactive elements except water-soluble tritium - according to energy agency official Tatsuya Shinkawa.

The government, however, is not paying for urgently needed water tanks and other equipment that TEPCO is using to contain leaks. Shinkawa said the funding is limited to "technologically challenging projects" but the government is open to additional help when needed.

The ice wall would freeze the ground to a depth of up to 30 meters (100 feet) through a system of pipes carrying a coolant as cold as minus 40 degrees Celsius (minus 40 Fahrenheit). That would block contaminated water from escaping from the facility's immediate surroundings, as well as keep underground water from entering the reactor and turbine buildings, where much of the radioactive water has collected.

The project, which TEPCO and the government proposed in May, is being tested for feasibility by Japanese construction giant Kajima Corp. and is set for completion by March 2015.

Similar methods have been used to block water from parts of tunnels and subways, but building a 1.4-kilometer (0.9-mile) wall that surrounds four reactor buildings and their related facilities is unprecedented.

An underground ice wall has been used to isolate radioactive waste at the U.S. Department of Energy's former site of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee that produced plutonium, but only for six years, according to the MIT Technology Review magazine.

Some experts are still skeptical about the technology and say the running costs would be a huge burden.

Atsunao Marui, an underground water expert at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, said a frozen wall could be water-tight but is normally intended for use for a few years and is not proven for long-term use as planned in the outline. The decommissioning process is expected to take about 40 years.

"We still need a few layers of safety backups in case it fails," Marui told The Associated Press. "Plus the frozen wall won't be ready for another two years, which means contaminated water would continue to leak out."

Marui said additional measures should be taken to stop contaminated water from traveling under the seabed during that time and leaking further out at sea.

TEPCO has been pumping water into the wrecked reactors to cool nuclear fuel that melted when the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami knocked out the plant's power and cooling systems. The utility has built more than 1,000 tanks holding 335,000 tons of contaminated water at the plant, and the amount grows by 400 tons daily. Some tanks have sprung leaks, spilling contaminated water onto the ground.

After spending on the ice wall, the remainder of the public funding - 15 billion yen until March 2015 - will go to the development and production of a water treatment unit that can treat larger amounts of contaminated water more thoroughly than an existing machine, which is under repair after corrosion was found during a test run.

Nuclear Regulation Authority Chairman Shunichi Tanaka has repeatedly said that the contaminated water cannot be stored in tanks forever and eventually must be released into the sea after being fully processed and diluted, but only with local consent.

Other measures include replacing rubber-seamed storage tanks with more durable welded tanks as quickly as possible, and pumping out untainted underground water further inland for release into the sea to reduce the total amount of water flowing into the plant site. About 1,000 tons of underground water runs into the complex every day.

TEPCO is also constructing an offshore wall of steel panels to keep contaminants from spreading further into the sea. The utility says radioactive elements have mostly remained near the embankment inside the bay, but experts have reported offshore "hot spots" of sediments contaminated with high levels of cesium.

The leaks came as Tokyo headed into the final days of the contest to host the 2020 Summer Olympics. With anti-government demonstrations plaguing Istanbul's bid and a recession and high Spanish unemployment hanging over Madrid's candidacy, Tokyo is pushing its bid as the safe choice in uncertain times.

The IOC is to select the 2020 host on Sept. 7 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.