Blog · Page 143 of 228

April 11, 2011

UPDATE, 4:00 pm, Monday, Kyodo News Service is reporting that the Japanese government is finally considering upgrading the severity of the Fukushima accident to the highest level on the international scale—Level 7. This follows release of a calculation from the Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan that a staggering 10,000 terabecquerels of radiation were released from the site for at least several hours (one terabecquerel is a trillion becquerels and is roughly equivalent to 27 curies of radiation) at one unspecified point. Clearly, millions of curies have been released from Fukushima.

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April 11, 2011

UPDATE, 3:00 pm, Monday, One full month after the earthquake, tsunami and onset of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the Japanese government is preparing for evacuation of five more villages about 25 miles or so northwest of Fukushima Daiichi, including Iitate and Namie, which we have noted numerous times below have been experiencing high radiation levels for a month now. Five other villages are being considered for evacuation. However, the planned evacuations are not immediate and may take weeks to happen.

Update

April 8, 2011

NRC staff letter states that UniStar Nuclear is ineligible to receive a Construction/Operating License to build Calvert Cliffs 3 because it violates Atomic Energy Act prohibitions against foreign ownership, control or domination of a U.S. reactor project. NIRS press release.

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April 8, 2011

UPDATE, 6:00 pm, Friday, Activists in Japan are putting out an urgent appeal to stop schools in contaminated zones from opening. In Japan, schools are scheduled to open for the year over the next two weeks. Radiation levels in many areas outside the evacuation zone remain high. For example, measurements taken April 5 in Iitate Village (40 km northwest of Fukushima Daiichi) range from 9.5 to 18.2 MicroSievert/hour, or nearly 1-2 millirems/hour. Allowable annual exposure level in the U.S. is 100 millirems/year, meaning people exposed to this level of radiation could receive their annual dose in 50 to 100 hours. But it’s even worse in the town of Namie, also northwest of the site: levels there were measured April 5 at 18.8 to 23 MicroSievert/hour. Children are more susceptible to radiation exposure than adults.

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April 7, 2011

UPDATE, 3:15 pm, Thursday, Today’s earthquake (which we have seen variously reported as between 7.1 and 7.9 in magnitude) has knocked out power in some sections of northeast Japan. The single-unit Higashidori Boiling Water Reactor and the Rokkasho reprocessing plant have lost offsite power and are running on emergency diesel generators. Offsite power may also have been lost to the three unit Onagawa nuclear complex, although there is a report that power remains for the reactors themselves, but not for the fuel pools and that those are relying upon emergency diesel generators.

Update

April 7, 2011

UPDATE, 12:30 pm, Thursday, A 7.1 earthquake struck northeast Japan about an hour ago (11:30 pm Japan time); workers were temporarily evacuated from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear site. There are no immediate reports of additional damage at the site.

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April 6, 2011

NIRS, Friends of the Earth, NC WARN and others file new legal challenge to AP 1000 reactor design in wake of Fukushima accident.

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April 6, 2011

UPDATE, 3:30 pm, Wednesday, The New York Times has an important front-page story today on a still-unreleased U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission assessment that indicates the situation at Fukushima remains extremely serious, that some of the measures Tepco and the Japanese government have taken have caused unanticipated repercussions and new problems—in particular new stresses placed on the containments that places their ability to withstand earthquake aftershocks in doubt, and ongoing concerns about the possibility of more hydrogen explosions at the site.

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April 5, 2011

UPDATE, 4:30 pm Tuesday, Japan’s NHK TV is reporting that a plant worker at Fukushima Daiichi says that radiation levels inside the reactors buildings of Units 1-3 are “immeasurable”—so high that their radiation monitors have been rendered useless. The report states that levels of 10 rems/hour have been measured even outside the buildings.

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April 5, 2011

UPDATE, 11:00 am, Tuesday, The Los Angeles Times is reporting that radioactive Iodine-131 has been measured in seawater near Fukushima at 7.5 million times the legal limit. Perhaps even more worrisome is that radioactive Cesium-137 has been measured at more than 1 million times the limit. The Cesium is likely to lodge in sediment in the region and remain a factor for marine life and fishing for perhaps centuries.

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