Fukushima

Concerns grow over stability of Japan nuclear plant

Posted Thu, 24/05/2012 - 11:04pm by DanV
By Wyatt Olson
Stars and Stripes
Published: May 23, 2012
 

YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — As the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant crisis escalated in March 2011, Japan Prime Minister Naoto Kan secretly requested a worst-case scenario from the chairman of the Japan Atomic Energy Commission.

Fukushima Reactor 4 poses massive global risk

Posted Thu, 24/05/2012 - 11:02pm by DanV

Date: Saturday May. 19, 2012 8:20 PM ET

More than a year after a devastating earthquake and tsunami triggered a massive nuclear disaster, experts are warning that Japan isn't out of the woods yet and the worst nuclear storm the world has ever seen could be just one earthquake away from reality.

Fukushima Reactor 4: The Most Important Story Nobody's Talking About

Posted Thu, 24/05/2012 - 10:56pm by DanV

Written by Damien Gillis Monday, 21 May 2012 17:33

"It is no exaggeration to say that the fate of Japan and the whole world depends on No. 4 reactor."
-Former Japanese Ambassador to Switzerland Mitsuhei Murata to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

Fukushima Daiichi’s Unit 4 Spent-Fuel Pool: Safe or Not?

Posted Thu, 24/05/2012 - 10:23pm by DanV

By Phred Dvorak - The Wall Street Journal - May 21, 2012, 7:48 PM JST

Questions have been bubbling recently over how safe Japan’s stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant—in particular the pool atop Unit 4, where some 1,535 fuel rods are stored—would be if another big earthquake hit.

Full story: http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2012/05/21/fukushima-daiichis-unit-4-spent-fuel-pool-safe-or-not

NISA, Tepco knew in '06 of Fukushima tsunami threat

Posted Wed, 16/05/2012 - 2:50pm by DanV
Kyodo - Wed, 16 May 2012

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency and Tokyo Electric Power Co. were aware at least by 2006 that the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant was at risk of having its power knocked out by massive tsunami, NISA officials said Tuesday.

Full story: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120516a5.html

Fukushima owner is nationalized

Posted Sun, 13/05/2012 - 8:22pm by DanV

Nature News Blog

| Posted by Geoffrey Brumfiel

It was as inevitable as cherry blossoms blooming in springtime: sooner or later, Japan had to nationalize the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the owner of the ruined Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Today the government announced a ¥1 trillion (US$12.5 billion) plan to bail out the country’s largest utility, and at least temporarily take control.

The Fukushima nuclear plant's slow recovery offers lessons to the US

Posted Sun, 13/05/2012 - 8:19pm by DanV

Despite the Japanese PM's optimistic assessment of Fukushima, experts have new worries about the plant's recovery

guardian.co.uk,

Blackwater Against New Nuclear Group meeting - Focus on Fukushima

Posted Fri, 11/05/2012 - 11:11pm by DanV

Yoshi Takamura, a lawyer and environmentalist, who lives in Hiroshima, is coming to speak in Colchester on 18 June.
His theme is Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Fukushima, and the links between nuclear power and nuclear weapons.
 
Yoshi's talk will be introduced by Andy Blowers, who will speak on the subject 'Fukushima - it is a moral issue'.
The meeting will be held at the Quakers Meeting House, Church Street, Colchester (near the Mercury Theatre) at 7.30 pm.

Event Date and Time: 
Mon, 18/06/2012 - 7:30pm

The Worst Yet to Come? Why Nuclear Experts Are Calling Fukushima a Ticking Time-Bomb

Posted Mon, 07/05/2012 - 5:37pm by DanV
Via AlterNet - By Brad Jacobson
 
Experts say acknowledging the threat would call into question the safety of dozens of identically designed nuclear power plants in the U.S.
May 4, 2012  |  

Concerns mount over the growing threat from Fukushima’s spent fuel - will the experts’ warning call be heard?

Posted Mon, 07/05/2012 - 5:33pm by Anonymous

Via Bellona - Vladimir Slivyak, 06/05-2012 - Translated by Maria Kaminskaya:

MOSCOW - More than a year since the catastrophic nuclear and radiation disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, concerns loom ever larger over the site as experts warn with increasing worry of the unstable condition of the cooling pond at Unit 4, where spent nuclear fuel holds ten times the amount of radioactive cesium that was blown into the atmosphere with the 1986 reactor explosion at Chernobyl. Russia would be well served to join their call for action – will it?