This affects all of us who border the Pacific... and beyond.

Tepco?

Fukushima operator may have to dump contaminated water into Pacific: As Japan marks the third anniversary of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster, Tepco is struggling to find a solution for hundreds of thousands of tonnes of contaminated water  

What gives you the right to poison our oceans with radioactivity?  (Ignore our 'work' on the Bikini Islands.) Is this the best idea you can come up with for the continuous leaks and the huge quantity of radioactive water?  Tepco, the company that has gangsters taking over contracts and hiring homeless people to work clean up?  Why should we trust you when you tell us it is safe to do this?

We must never forget Fukushima and the lessons it has taught us.  At least we can see some changing attitudes about nuclear power.

Radiation? What radiation?

The government wouldn't lie to their own people in such a dangerous situation, would they? ... Apparently they would, they did, and they will. Fukushima No. 2 Reactor Has '10 Times The Fatal Dose' of Radiation. Meanwhile, Original Contamination Data Was Deleted The whole world was watching, taking aerial samples, checking the seawater, and we knew that it was horribly horribly bad. It's still horribly horribly bad and will remain so forever. Japan just lost a massive chunk of their island because of their nuclear program. How many accidents and disasters do we have to go through before we realize we can't handle nuclear power plant mistakes? How much more of the earth do we have to make uninhabitable?

When will we need geiger counters to go shopping?

Traces of radiation found in Japanese baby formula 

 A Japanese baby food manufacturer has announced the recall of 400,000 cans of infant formula that reportedly contain traces of radioactive cesium connected to the nation's recent nuclear plant meltdown. 

After panicked parents deluged Tokyo-based Meiji Co. with calls and e-mails, officials of the Tokyo-based food and candy maker responded Wednesday that they do not know how much of the tainted formula had reached consumers, but said the milk was manufactured in March and April and shipped not long afterward. 

The incident marked the second time this week that skittish Japanese citizens learned of more radioactive after-effects from the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The facility was struck March 11 by an earthquake-triggered tsunami that knocked out its cooling system and led to several reactor core meltdowns that spewed radiation into the air, water and soil. 

On Sunday, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co., or Tepco, announced that 45 tons of highly radioactive water had leaked from a filtration system at the atomic plant, with some of the water possibly reaching the nearby Pacific Ocean. 

Critics say the leak counteracts assurances that Tepco has largely controlled the environmental damage at the coastal plant, located 220 miles northeast of Tokyo. The radiation in the water from Sunday's leak measured up to 322 times higher than government safety limits for various types of cesium. 

On Wednesday, plant officials acknowledged that nearly 40 gallons of water from the weekend leak had reached the Pacific Ocean. The water, which was used to cool the reactors, contained not only cesium, but strontium, another dangerous isotope, the utility said.

Update: The Japanese are trying to tell themselves their land contaminated by radiation will be salvageable.

Those who fled Futaba are among the nearly 90,000 people evacuated from a 12-mile zone around the Fukushima Daiichi plant and another area to the northwest contaminated when a plume from the plant scattered radioactive cesium and iodine. Now, Japan is drawing up plans for a cleanup that is both monumental and unprecedented, in the hopes that those displaced can go home. The debate over whether to repopulate the area, if trial cleanups prove effective, has become a proxy for a larger battle over the future of Japan. Supporters see rehabilitating the area as a chance to showcase the country’s formidable determination and superior technical skills — proof that Japan is still a great power. For them, the cleanup is a perfect metaphor for Japan’s rebirth. Critics counter that the effort to clean Fukushima Prefecture could end up as perhaps the biggest of Japan’s white-elephant public works projects — and yet another example of post-disaster Japan reverting to the wasteful ways that have crippled economic growth for two decades. So far, the government is following a pattern set since the nuclear accident, dismissing dangers, often prematurely, and laboring to minimize the scope of the catastrophe. Already, the trial cleanups have stalled: the government failed to anticipate communities’ reluctance to store tons of soil to be scraped from contaminated yards and fields. And a radiation specialist who tested the results of an extensive local cleanup in a nearby city found that exposure levels remained above international safety standards for long-term habitation. Even a vocal supporter of repatriation suggests that the government has not yet leveled with its people about the seriousness of their predicament. “I believe it is possible to save Fukushima,” said the supporter, Tatsuhiko Kodama, director of the Radioisotope Center at the University of Tokyo. “But many evacuated residents must accept that it won’t happen in their lifetimes.”

Map of contaminated area in Japan.

What we don't know

Will most certainly kill us. The 'non'-reporting about the total meltdown at Fukishima:

Gundersen points out that far more radiation has been released than has been reported.

"They recalculated the amount of radiation released, but the news is really not talking about this," he said. "The new calculations show that within the first week of the accident, they released 2.3 times as much radiation as they thought they released in the first 80 days."

According to Gundersen, the exposed reactors and fuel cores are continuing to release microns of caesium, strontium, and plutonium isotopes. These are referred to as "hot particles".

"We are discovering hot particles everywhere in Japan, even in Tokyo," he said. "Scientists are finding these everywhere. Over the last 90 days these hot particles have continued to fall and are being deposited in high concentrations. A lot of people are picking these up in car engine air filters."

Radioactive air filters from cars in Fukushima prefecture and Tokyo are now common, and Gundersen says his sources are finding radioactive air filters in the greater Seattle area of the US as well.

The hot particles on them can eventually lead to cancer.

"These get stuck in your lungs or GI tract, and they are a constant irritant," he explained, "One cigarette doesn't get you, but over time they do. These [hot particles] can cause cancer, but you can't measure them with a Geiger counter. Clearly people in Fukushima prefecture have breathed in a large amount of these particles. Clearly the upper West Coast of the US has people being affected. That area got hit pretty heavy in April."

Update: Now they tell us! Chemicals Newly Disclosed As Risky Are In What We Eat...But What?

And the oceans are dying: Ocean life on the brink of mass extinctions

Because of this

Storm suspends work at Japan Fukushima nuclear plant

The operator of Japan's crippled nuclear plant has suspended some of its outdoor work due to a tropical storm, just days after it admitted it was not prepared for harsh weather.

Heavy rain and strong winds are hitting north-east Japan, which was devastated in the 11 March earthquake and tsunami.

There are fears that more radioactive material from the Fukushima plant could drain into the land and sea.

Japan's Meteorological Agency has warned of mudslides and floods.

Typhoon Songda weakened to a tropical storm over south-west Japan late on Sunday, but strong winds and rain have continued to pound the north-east of the country.

Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), which runs the nuclear plant, said it was on alert to ensure that contaminated water in reactor buildings did not flow out.

I am impressed by this:

Switzerland Plans To Abandon Nuclear Power

The Swiss government announced last week a proposal to phase out nuclear power as an energy source for electricity generation and to look more towards energy efficiency and renewables.

Under the proposal, existing nuclear power stations will be decommissioned at the end of their operational lifespan and will not be replaced by new reactors. This would see Switzerland being nuclear free by 2034.

And this:

Germany: Nuclear power plants to close by 2022

Germany's coalition government has announced a reversal of policy that will see all the country's nuclear power plants phased out by 2022.

The decision makes Germany the biggest industrial power to announce plans to give up nuclear energy.

Environment Minister Norbert Rottgen made the announcement following late-night talks.

Chancellor Angela Merkel set up a panel to review nuclear power following the crisis at Fukushima in Japan.

There have been mass anti-nuclear protests across Germany in the wake of March's Fukushima crisis, triggered by an earthquake and tsunami.

Because loss of life and land is a reality and mistakes and disasters are inevitable, these are intelligent actions by these countries. How many of them do we need to learn it takes only one mistake to forever devastate a region and destroy communities?

We'll be our own energy sources!

And we won't have to turn on the lights at night!!

A Quarter of U.S. Nuclear Plants Leaking
27 of 104 Plants Leak Radioactive Tritium, a Carcinogen, Raising Concerns About Nation's Aging Plants

Pro-nuclear power and pro-genetically modified food?

Wow. Stewart Brand seems to be against everything environmental I've read and heard about for years. But he is obviously thoughtful and challenging.

The man who helped usher in the environmental movement in the 1960s and '70s has been rethinking his positions on cities, nuclear power, genetic modification and geo-engineering. This talk at the US State Department is a foretaste of his major new book, sure to provoke widespread debate.

It most definitely will be provocative. Here is his bio.

FLOATING nuclear power stations?

Apparently the Russians are eyeing the Arctic Oil:

Russia is planning a fleet of floating and submersible nuclear power stations to exploit Arctic oil and gas reserves, causing widespread alarm among environmentalists.

A prototype floating nuclear power station being constructed at the SevMash shipyard in Severodvinsk is due to be completed next year. Agreement to build a further four was reached between the Russian state nuclear corporation, Rosatom, and the northern Siberian republic of Yakutiya in February.

What could possibly go wrong?

How about a few pirates?

Is this to prepare us or scare us?

New York, NY (AHN) - The UN said Tuesday it will stage a mock nuclear accident Wedneday at Mexico's Laguna Verde nuclear power plant. The fake emergency is designed to test the responses of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the UN World Health Organization.

With Fallon gone and Petraeus in charge,

Iran is now within reach for Cheney and the neocons:

WASHINGTON - The nomination of General David Petraeus to be the new head of the US Central Command ensures that he will be available to defend the George W Bush administration's policies on Iran and Iraq at least to the end of Bush's term and possibly even beyond.

It also gives Vice President Dick Cheney greater freedom of action to exploit the option of an air attack against Iran during the administration's final months.

Petraeus will take up the CENTCOM post in late summer or early autumn, according to Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

The ability of the administration to threaten Iran with an attack both publicly and behind the scenes had been dramatically reduced in 2007 by opposition from the former CENTCOM commander, Admiral William Fallon, until he stepped down from the post under pressure from Gates and the White House last month.

Petraeus has proved himself willing to cooperate closely with the White House on Iraq and Iran, arguing against any post-"surge" reduction in troop strength and blaming Iran for challenges to the US military presence. Along with the deference to Petraeus in Congress and the media, his pliability on those issues made him the obvious choice to replace Fallon.

But Petraeus had already effectively taken over many of the powers of the CENTCOM commander last year.

As the top commander in Iraq, he was in theory beneath Fallon in the chain of command. In reality, Petraeus ignored Fallon's views and took orders directly from the White House. Petraeus was in effect playing the role of CENTCOM commander in regard to the twin issues of Iraq and Iran.

Fallon clashed with Petraeus repeatedly from the beginning of his command about the "surge" and US withdrawal from Iraq. Fallon opposed the "surge" and believed the US should begin the withdrawal of most of its troops from Iraq, but he was effectively stymied by the close Petraeus-White House link from being able to influence US military policy in Iraq and the region as a whole.

Fallon had also pushed very hard, according to a source familiar with his thinking, for trying to negotiate an agreement with Iran over innocent passage through the Strait of Hormuz to ease tensions caused by US-Iranian differences over the obligations of navy vessels transiting the strait. But any such negotiations would have conflicted with the administration's emphasis on confrontation with Iran, and they weren't interested.

So what did Cheney do right after Fallon was booted?

Fallon's resignation announcement on March 11 was followed less than a week later by a 10-day Cheney trip to the Middle East in which the vice president talked explicitly about the military option against Iran during visits to Turkey and Saudi Arabia. That suggested that Cheney felt freer to wield the military threat to Iran with Fallon neutralized.

Cheney aggressively solicited political support from Turkish leaders for a US strike against Iranian nuclear facilities during his visit to Turkey last month, according to a source familiar with Cheney's meeting in Ankara.

Cheney was "very aggressive" in asking Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul, as well as Turkey's chief of general staff General Yasar Bukyukanit to get "on board" with such an attack, according to the source, who has access to reports from the Cheney visit.

Remember what the reaction of the Saudis was right after Cheney's visit: researching procedures to handle radioactive fallout.

And why did the Bush administration 'open up' the file on Israel's bombing of Syria unless it was to prepare the world for the inevitable bombing strikes on Iran? You have to ask why they did it right now, because they've never released any kind of information unless it benefits their agenda:

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration went public Thursday with sensitive intelligence meant to show that North Korea spent years helping Syria build a covert facility for nuclear weapons before the plant was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike last year.

The disclosures offered a rare look at evidence gathered by U.S. and allied intelligence agencies and were part of a choreographed campaign by the administration to put pressure not only on North Korea and Syria, but also on other adversaries accused of pursuing nuclear weapons, including Iran.

The previously classified information included satellite images of the Syrian facility, photos of a man identified as a North Korean nuclear expert in Syria, as well as pictures taken by someone with access to the structure as it was being built.

The photos were presented in a glossy dossier that called attention to similarities between the Syrian plant, at a desert site called Al Kibar, and North Korea's nuclear reactor at Yongbyon.

The evidence left several questions unanswered, such as how Damascus would fuel the plant or manufacture bombs, and was greeted with skepticism by some nuclear experts and foreign officials.

U.S. intelligence officials acknowledged that they had not obtained evidence indicating Syria was working on nuclear weapons designs and had not identified a source of nuclear material for the facility.

In detailing the alleged North Korean-Syrian cooperation and the destruction of the plant, the Bush administration broke a long silence. U.S. officials confirmed the Israeli attack on the site and indicated that they had cooperated intensively with the Israelis on intelligence and policy issues. They denied any U.S. involvement in planning or executing the Sept. 6 strike.

Further into the article:

As the briefings concluded, the White House issued a statement condemning North Korea and Syria and warning Iran that it should relinquish any nuclear weapons aspirations.

I don't think this has anything to do with Syria or North Korea.

They're going to bomb Iran and hand the disaster over to the Democratic president. Two birds with one 500 ton bomb.

Update: And here is more preparation of the excuses we'll give:

WASHINGTON -- The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff today accused Iran of increasing its shipments of weapons to militants in Iraq, despite promises by Iranian leaders that they would cut off the flow of arms.

Adm. Michael G. Mullen, the Joint Chiefs chairman, said there was not a massive infusion of weapons but said over time there had been "a consistent increase" in arms shipments. Speaking at a morning news conference, Mullen said weapons had been intercepted in Iraq that showed evidence of relatively recent manufacture in Iran, adding that Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, would lay out a fuller account of the evidence in the weeks to come.

Update: Sinfonian of Blast Off says it better.

crossposted at American Street

Now this really makes me feel safe...

Homer Simpson at the nuclear plant controls:

RIVERSIDE, Calif., Jan. 15 A Southern California nuclear plant has been ordered to train its managers and contractors in ethics following the report of security lapses.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Monday that one employee at the San Onofre plant near San Clemente falsely reported for five years that hourly fire checks had been done, the Los Angeles Times reported. The commission found five breaches of regulations in the past year, including two involving security. Officials would not specify the security problems.

Southern California Edison owns 75 percent of the plant, with the remainder split between San Diego Gas & Electric Co. and the city of Riverside.

"The order contains a comprehensive set of actions designed to improve performance at San Onofre by emphasizing a strong nuclear safety culture," said Elmo E. Collins, an NRC regional administrator. "The NRC depends on a good-faith effort by power plant workers to follow regulations."

We don't need to be afraid of foreign terrorists far away, we need to be afraid of incompetents close at home!

We're getting just a bit sloppy with our nukes

And if one of them goes off accidentally, by the time it's sorted out, Cheney and Bush will have attacked Iran.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 5 The chair of a key U.S. congressional panel Wednesday characterized as "deeply disturbing" the flight of a B-52 bomber loaded with five nuclear warheads.

"There is no more serious issue than the security and proper handling of nuclear weapons," Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., chairman of the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, said in a statement.

The bomber mistakenly loaded with five warheads flew from Minot Air Force Base, N.D, to Barksdale Air Force Base, La., Aug. 30, prompting an Air Force-wide investigation.

And via Hipparchia of Over The Cliff, Onto The Rocks, an article about nuclear accidents in Tennessee:

Some 35 liters, or just over 9 gallons, of highly enriched uranium solution leaked from a transfer line into a protected glovebox and spilled onto the floor. The leak was discovered when a supervisor saw a yellow liquid ``running into a hallway'' from under a door, according to one document.

The commission said there were two areas, the glovebox and an old elevator shaft, where the solution potentially could have collected in such a way to cause an uncontrolled nuclear reaction.

``It is likely that at least one worker would have received an exposure high enough to cause acute health effects or death,'' the agency wrote.

So now even we are ignoring the IAEA?

And this shows the rest of the world that we are serious about containing bomb making plutonium? What does this action tell Iran? Who the hell thought this action up? WTF??:

WASHINGTON (August 1, 2007)—The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) today condemned the Department of Energy for proceeding with construction of a $5 billion South Carolina plant designed to turn plutonium into mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel for U.S. nuclear reactors without honoring its commitment to make the plant available for inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Edwin Lyman, senior staff scientist in UCS's Global Security Program, said this move undermines the credibility of nuclear non-proliferation efforts at a time when the international community is struggling to stop the spread of nuclear weapons materials and technologies around the world.

In a letter sent to Energy Secretary Samuel L. Bodman, Lyman wrote, "…the U.S. has a responsibility to set the gold standard for safeguards and security as an example for Russia and for the rest of the world. Yet DOE has already failed to live up to that responsibility by shutting the IAEA out of the process for developing a safeguards regime for the MOX plant prior to construction."

An IAEA review of the plant design would provide assurances to the international community that the facility will be used for peaceful purposes, Lyman said. Such a gesture would be a "powerful symbol" to the rest of the world that the United States plays by the same rules that it urges other countries to follow.

If the Energy Department had arranged to put the plant under IAEA safeguards, it would have had to provide facility design information to the IAEA at least 180 days in advance of the start of construction.

"Unless the United States leads the way in demonstrating its commitment to the highest level of safeguards and security for facilities that process bomb-usable nuclear materials, it will be a virtually impossible task to encourage other nations to adopt high standards," said Lyman. "The Energy Department's irresponsible actions today will only increase the chance that other nations will defy the IAEA and nuclear weapons materials will fall into the hands of rogue states or terrorists."

Just a heads up to Libya

Usually when we give you nuclear stuff it means we intend to invade later.

The US is to help Libya build its first-ever nuclear power plant according to the African nation's official news agency, Jana.

Jana said on Monday that the General People's Committee, the Libyan parliamentary body, had given approval for the foreign ministry to sign a deal with the US the day before.

There was no immediate confirmation of the deal from the US, but any such agreement would continue a considerable thawing of relations between the two countries.

I mean, Libya has oil, right?

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Normal diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Libya could result in more contracts for American oil companies, just when it's getting harder to do business in some Latin American countries.

While last week's move normalizing relations with Libya was expected and didn't have an immediate impact on crude prices in New York, experts say it's an added bonus to the lifting of economic sanctions against the country back in 2004.

"When it comes to oil, it's all politics," said Fadel Gheit, an energy analyst with Oppenheimer in New York. "If Gadhafi comes to the White House, count the number of days until a contract is landed by Halliburton or Exxon."

That's what I thought....