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The Yakuza and the Nuclear Mafia: Nationalization Looms for TEPCO Jake Adelstein 2,500 Views Dec 30, 2011 Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the monolithic corporation that controls all electric power in Greater Tokyo, and runs the Fukushima Daichii nuclear plant that experienced a triple meltdown following the March 11 earthquake, is on the brink of nationalization according to Japanese government sources. The official reason is that the firm may not be able to handle the massive compensation payments it owes to victims of the meltdown without going bankrupt. Unofficially, the firm has such long-standing ties to anti-social forces, including the...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Washington is starting to dig deep in a $2.6 billion underground solution aimed at helping clean up the polluted Potomac River and the ailing Chesapeake Bay, the biggest U.S. estuary. In the U.S. capital's biggest public works project in more than 40 years, work started this fall to cut about 16 miles of tunnels to keep overflow sewage and stormwater from running into the Potomac. The project, designed to be finished in 2025, is seen by environmentalists as part of resolving the next great water pollution challenge facing the United States -- keeping fouled runoff out of...

'Absolutely no progress being made' at Fukushima nuke plant, undercover reporter says Conditions at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant are far worse than its operator or the government has admitted, according to freelance journalist Tomohiko Suzuki, who spent more than a month working undercover at the power station. "Absolutely no progress is being made" towards the final resolution of the crisis, Suzuki told reporters at a Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan news conference on Dec. 15. Suzuki, 55, worked for a Toshiba Corp. subsidiary as a general laborer there from July 13 to Aug. 22, documenting sloppy repair work,...

Yakuza involved in Fukushima clean-up: reporter Crime Dec. 16, 2011 - 10:45AM JST TOKYO — A Japanese journalist who worked at the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant this summer claimed Thursday that Japan’s yakuza crime syndicates were involved in supplying clean-up crews. “Roughly 10% of plant workers there were brought in through the mediation of the yakuza,” said Tomohiko Suzuki, 45, who has written a book based on his experience at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. “The yakuza are very much involved in this industry but they are not involved as people working on site,” Suzuki told reporters. “They are in charge...

Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2011 RADIATION DECONTAMINATION Radiation cleanup plan falls short Experts liken current strategy to letting nature run its course By KAZUAKI NAGATA Staff writer Radioactive fallout from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant has caused widespread fear, prompting the government in August to adopt basic targets for decontamination efforts in and around Fukushima Prefecture. But the government's plan falls short and efforts should focus in particular on residential areas with more aggressive decontamination measures and goals, including reducing current radiation levels by 90 percent, two radiation experts said when interviewed by The Japan Times. "I really doubt...

Radiation Cleanup Confounds Japan By YUMIKO ONO /snip In the crucial early days after the tsunami knocked out power to cooling systems at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, the government and plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. argued over who was in charge of containing the escalating disaster. Officials delayed the evacuation of residents in hot spots, despite information that radiation levels were high. They didn't distribute iodine pills to protect against thyroid cancer, despite calls from some experts to do so. They insisted that meat and vegetables produced around the nuclear facilities were safe, although they didn't adequately test...

Texas Governor Rick Perry on job creation, border security, and Washington’s failure to do anything useful about either. Tea Party Brew welcomes the Governor and his participation in our premiere.Over the past few years, we’ve seen happens when our country chooses leaders who emphasize words over deeds. For all of the president’s eloquent speeches, he’s done nothing to right America’s wayward course. As jobs are lost, so is the hope he once promised. Meanwhile, the federal government has grown bigger and more brazen, willfully neglecting its constitutional duties. Washington’s mess has spilled across the country. Nearly 2.5 million jobs have...

Watch the video for some inspiration. Now, these folks are like the Tea Party, are they not!

Resumption of decontamination system not in sight The operator of the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has still not resumed operations of a system to decontaminate highly radioactive water. Tokyo Electric Power Company had planned to start decontaminating and recycling the water by July 17th to cool the reactors. Water is being injected continuously into the reactors and the resulting contaminated water is starting to fill up the storage facilities, raising fears that it will start overflowing around July 5th. So far 4,500 tons of contaminated water has been treated in a test run, and work to remove salt...

Valve Flaw Found in TEPCO N-Plant's Water Cleanup Equipment Tokyo, June 23 (Jiji Press)--Tokyo Electric Power Co. <9501> said Thursday that it has detected problems with a valve in pipes for cesium-absorbing equipment, part of a system to clean radiation-contaminated water at its stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power station in northeastern Japan. The announcement came after TEPCO found that the equipment was unable to absorb as much cesium as assumed. Following a check of all valves in the pipes through which contaminated water passes, TEPCO resumed test operations of the equipment early Thursday morning. The trial involves the treatment...

Efforts to delay radioactive water leaks Tokyo Electric Power Company continues to struggle to prevent possible leaks of highly-radioactive water that is accumulating at its troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. TEPCO plans to move an additional 2,700 tons of highly-contaminated water from the reactor buildings to an adjacent waste processing facility. The move is an attempt to postpone by 5 days water overflowing from a tunnel outside Reactor 2. This could occur on June 20th if a new water-decontaminating system is not installed and in operation by next Wednesday. The utility says it has already obtained the consent of...

Thursday, May 12, 2011 U.S. Ready To Support Fukushima Effort 'For Years': Roos TOKYO (Nikkei)--The U.S. will spare no effort to help Japan end the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear crisis, Ambassador John Roos recently told The Nikkei, saying it is in the world's interest "to put the best minds to work" on the challenges that remain. The administration of President Barack Obama "has made it clear from the very beginning that this is a multidimensional problem" that will go on for "years and even decades," Roos said in an interview this week. John Roos "And it is the full intent (of)...

Workers locked in battle at Fukushima, exposure to radiation rising TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Workers at a nuclear power plant damaged by last month's earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan's northeast continued battling to deal with radioactive water Saturday as their exposure to radiation is constantly increasing. One more worker is found to have been exposed to radiation of more than 100 millisieverts, bringing to 30 the total number of people of that dosage level while dealing with the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi plant since the March 11 disasters, sources familiar with the situation said. Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power...

Trying to find out which software is actually good data wipe software to clean up a hard drive for installation of new OS.

Sunday, April 3, 2011 Govt Says Several Months May Be Required Before Radiation Leaks Stop TOKYO (Kyodo)--The government expects that several months may be required before radioactive particles stop being released from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, its top spokesman said Sunday. ''If we apply methods considered to be normal, I believe that it will be something like that,'' Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told a news conference, when asked whether at least several months would be required before the plant crippled by the devastating March 11 earthquake and ensuing tsunami is brought under control. ''While it may not be...

DOA Secretary Mike Huebsch today backed off an original estimate that it could cost $7.5 million to clean the Capitol walls after protesters taped numerous signs to the marble. "Our hope is that, at its minimum, we could be dealing in hundreds of thousands of dollars," Huebsch said. "At its maximum, if there is damage to wood and others and we had to get back to painstaking restoration, that's where you could easily get into the millions." During testimony yesterday in the Dane County court case that eventually led to the clearing of the Capitol last night, DOA chief legal...

Federal study confirms microbes have eaten most of the Gulf Oil Spill A study by researchers from Texas A&M and University of California in Santa Barbara have found that all of the methane gas released from the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico have been consumed by tiny microbes. Methane gas amounts 100,000 times higher than normal at the time of their release have completely disappeared after only 120 days. Some scientists had raised concerns that dissolved methane and other oil residue would continue to plague the Gulf for years or even decades. This is turning out not...

Yoshinori Ishimi could hear a high-pitched whine coming from the apartment in Nerima Ward, Tokyo, he was about to enter. When he went inside, he saw black "mini-twister" clouds of flies. The last tenant had been a 60-year-old divorced man whose body was not found until a month after he had died. "Every time I encounter such scenes, I hesitate to step inside. But someone has to clean up these flats . . . and be professional about it," said Ishimi of Anshin Net, a cleaning service that is part of R-Cube Co. in Ota Ward, Tokyo. The Nerima man's...

Oil's well that ends well -- or so the White House hopes. Almost as soon as BP announced it had succeeded (at least for now) in plugging the Deepwater Horizon gusher, President Obama called a White House press conference -- his first in nearly a year. His main message: The crisis is over; let the vacation begin! The assembled press pretty much gave him a pass. The first question: "Did you feel the earthquake, Mr. President?" The tremor Washington had early Friday was 3.2 on the Richter Scale -- not enough to shake a martini, but the wizened Washington press...

One local official is voicing his frustration over what he calls a "nine-to-five" attitude by some federal authorities in the face of the oil disaster. Jefferson Councilman Chris Roberts says the parish has a plan to build rock levees to help keep oil out of inland waterways like Barataria Bay. Roberts told WWL First News that after they submitted the proposal to the Army Corps of Engineers last week, Corps officials said last Friday that discussion on the plan would have to be put on hold until the following Monday, because the Corps office would be closed for the...

As a 64-year-old British actress, she may not be an obvious candidate to help remedy the worst oil spill in U.S. history. Nevertheless, BP has invited Joanna Lumley to help stem the slick – because she is a long-term backer of a straw ‘mattress’ that soaks up crude....The invention by Briton Ken Frogbrook will be rolled out around the Gulf of Mexico coastline to soak up the slick and help clean the water. The mattress is said to absorb more than 20 times its weight in crude from polluted water and gives oil-covered wildlife something to step on to. Miss...

ON BARATARIA BAY, La. – While oil companies have spent billions of dollars to drill deeper and farther out to sea, relatively little money and research have gone into finding new, improved ways to respond to oil spills in deepsea conditions like those in the Gulf of Mexico. Experts say the massive Gulf spill has exposed a failure by the industry and the federal government to commit adequate resources to oil cleanup and response technology. "Why they didn't start working on it after the (Ixtoc 1) Mexican spill in 1979 is beyond me," said Gerald Graham, president of Worldocean Consulting,...

BP's chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg has revealed to Sky News that embattled chief executive Tony Hayward is to have a changed role in dealing with the oil spill, SkyNews.com reported. Asked about Hayward's ongoing role, Svanberg said: "He is now handing over the operation to Bob Dudley." Dudley is the managing director of the oil giant.

Residents in Josephine and Perdido Beach are using what they have -- hay and agricultural netting -- to create booms to protect the coastlines of their remote Baldwin County communities.  The idea, and the speed of boom making, greatly increased when a Christmas tree farm donated one of its bundling machines. The amateur boom makes saw their production go from 8 to 40 booms an hour.  It all started when a customer of Baldwin County Sewer Service called requesting a donation of hay, according to system spokesman Charlie Baumhauer. Finding out that the hay would be used to collect oil,...

The Texas Land Office and Texas Water Commission successfully used ‘oil eating’ microbes to clean up large oil spills in just weeks. Microbes hunt down and eat the toxic oil and leave only a biodegradable waste that is non-toxic to humans and marine life. Marshland and beaches were pristine again in just weeks — not years...

A small island in the middle of a big ocean, Key West has always made a virtue of its isolation. In 1982, for example, an onerous Border Patrol checkpoint on U.S. Route 1, which links the Keys to mainland Florida, resulted in the island's declaring itself the autonomous Conch Republic. This was, of course, mostly a joke ("We Seceded Where Others Failed" was its e pluribus unum), but the mayor's declaration of independence did include a twinge of real anger and a vow that "we have no intention of suffering in the future at the hands of fools and bureaucrats."

We learned a simple thing this week: that the BP clean-up effort in the Gulf of Mexico is hampered by the Jones Act. This is a piece of 1920s protectionist legislation, that requires all vessels working in U.S. waters to be American-built, and American-crewed. So while, for instance, the U.S. Coast Guard can accept such help as three kilometres of containment boom from Canada, they can't accept, and therefore don't ask for, the assistance of high-tech European vessels specifically designed for the task in hand. This is amusing, in a way: a memorable illustration of ... the sort of stuff...

Despite the vow by President Obama to keep the Gulf oil spill a top priority until the damage is cleaned up, 50 days after the BP rig exploded, a definitive date and meaningful solution is yet to be determined for the worst oil spill in the U.S. history. So, you would think if someone is willing to handle the clean-up with equipment and technology not available in the U.S., and finishes the job in shorter time than the current estimate, the U.S. should jump on the offer. But it turned out to be quite the opposite.

EPA and the “National Contingency Plan” Did any of you know that the US supposedly has a National Contingency Plan for dealing with very large oil spills? And that EPA has legal responsibility for maintaining readiness for such an eventuality? Who knew? I’ve watched hours of coverage and this hasn’t been mentioned anywhere. The National Oil and Hazardous Substances Contingency Plan Act was signed into law in 1994 (superceding previous legislation that went back to the 1969 Torrey Canyon oil spill.) Laws and regulations are collated here. The EPA has an online book describing the National Continency Plan.

Texas Tech researcher Seshadri Ramkumar has his fingers crossed. Fibertect, his super-absorbent layered cotton product that recently gained national attention as a military decontamination wipe, could play a vital role in sopping up the oil blanketing miles of beaches along the Gulf Coast. The Environmental Protection Agency approved the technology last week as a viable, eco-friendly way to trap oil from the ocean's water. Every gram of the multi-layer cotton wipe, Ramukumar said, can absorb up to 20-grams of the sticky black crude choking the life out of the treasured wetlands. Fibertect can also catch the noxious fumes wafting from...

The same Texas Tech-created nonwoven cotton technology that keeps soldiers safe from chemical and biological warfare agents may also serve as the perfect sponge for sopping up oil that has polluted the Gulf of Mexico. As oil continues to gush from the exploded Deepwater Horizon oil rig, a Texas Tech expert in nonwoven cotton technology says the “fabric of our lives” may do a better job to absorb the oil spill than the booms made of synthetic material. “Already, several million feet of the oil-containment booms have been used to capture the oil spilling into the Gulf,” said Seshadri Ramkumar,...

This is not a joke. A friend sent it to me. Watch it. You'll be surprised.

This is a great idea....too bad BP and others could care less about cleanup. COOL CHEAP EASY OIL CLEANUP

A St. Louis scientist who was among a select group picked by the Obama administration to pursue a solution to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has been removed from the group because of writings on his website, the U.S. Energy Department confirmed Wednesday. Washington University physics professor Jonathan Katz was one of five top scientists chosen by the Department of Energy and attended meetings in Houston last week. Though considered a leading scientist, Katz's website postings often touch on social issues. Some of those writings have stirred anger in the past and include postings defending homophobia and...

Cool solution to clean up oil disaster. Go to link please.

Obama Pledges 'Relentless' Oil Spill Cleanup, Defends Federal Response FOXNews.com President Obama warned Sunday that the vast oil spill nearing the Gulf coastline is a "potentially unprecedented" disaster, as he and other top administration officials defended their response and pledged a "relentless" government effort to clean up the slick.

CJ Warren issues a call to conservatives to roll up their sleeves and fix the Gulf Oil spill - without waiting for Uncle Sam...er...Barry We Americans just know how to pitch in and get-r-done. I am calling on all of my fellow patriotic friends on the right, to do the right thing, right now. If you are a TeaParty, 912, Band of Mothers, Mommy Patriots, Militia, or any other group leader, call out the troops. I do not care what part of the country you live in. Let’s once again show the world what it is to be American. Let’s...

How come it has taken soooooooo long for the Obama White House to respond to this oil slick disaster? Is it because he WANTS to take over another business, that is the oil producing business? President Obama and the Dems controled House and Senate have pretty much taken over the banks, the health profession, two major car companies, so this would not be surprising at all if President Obama goes after the oil companies.

CONCORD, N.H. – In a tale celebrating the romance of movies, a contractor cleaning out an old New Hampshire barn destined for demolition found seven reels of nitrate film inside, including the only known copy of a 1913 silent film about Abraham Lincoln. "When Lincoln Paid," a 30-minute film about the mother of a dead Union soldier asking Lincoln to pardon a Confederate soldier whom she had initially turned in, stars the brother of John Ford, director of "The Grapes of Wrath," "The Quiet Man," and other classics. "I was up in the attic space, and shoved away over in...

BASRAH – Iraqi government and U.S. military and State Department officials welcomed Iraqi media to view an empty lot here, April 1, that until recently had been the site of a pile of scrap metal as tall as the surrounding buildings. "The project here at Hamden Hotel involved the removal of 6,000 tons of scrap metal and took 20 days of around-the-clock work to accomplish," said Jerry Mallory, acting team leader of the U.S. State Department's Basrah Provincial Reconstruction Team. As part of a larger plan to remove solid waste from areas in and around Basrah, this project is the...

India's Holy Ganges to Get a Cleanup Government Embarks on $4 Billion Campaign to Treat Heavily Polluted Waters; Devout Hindus Revere River as 'Goddess' By KRISHNA POKHAREL VARANASI, India—More than a million devout Hindus bathed in the Ganges River Friday, braving the risk of terrorist attack, stampede and petty crime for the chance to wash away the sins of a lifetime and open the gateway to heaven after death. But perhaps the greatest threat to the devotees who flocked to Haridwar, India, on one of the most auspicious days of the triennial Kumbh Mela festival, was the water itself. The...

A settlement has been reached between Caltrans and the San Diego Minutemen that gives the anti-illegal-immigration activists what they were hoping for: the right to keep their Adopt-A-Highway sign on northbound Interstate 5, a cash payment, and litter cleanup on an additional stretch of the freeway. The settlement was reached Monday, according to federal court records. In ending the lawsuit the group filed last year, the state conceded that the San Diego Minutemen sign near the Border Patrol's San Clemente checkpoint will remain for the duration of a five-year permit, and that the group may continue to clean the highway...

WASHINGTON – The Environmental Protection Agency for the first time has declared a public health emergency in a contaminated community, targeting a Montana town Wednesday for immediate federal attention. The declaration by EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson involving Libby, Mont., will not result in an evacuation, but will require an extensive cleanup and better health protections for residents with asbestos-related illnesses. -- Asbestos contamination from a now-closed vermiculite mine near Libby has been cited in the deaths of more than 200 people and illnesses of thousands more. Jackson said the public health emergency declaration was the first time the EPA has...

4. Outright government takeover (call it nationalization or “receivership" if you don’t like the dirty N-word) of insolvent banks to be cleaned after takeover and then resold to the private sector. Of the four options the first three have serious flaws: in the bad bank model the government may overpay for the bad assets – at a high cost for the taxpayer - as the true value of them is uncertain; and if it does not overpay for the assets many banks are bust as the mark-to-market haircut they need to recognize is too large for them to bear.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration will take action to clean up the Interior Department which was tarnished by sex, drug and gift-taking scandals between some employees and workers at energy companies they regulated, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said on Wednesday. Salazar told White House reporters that he will "make sure that scandals that have occurred in the past are properly dealt with and that the problems that we uncover are fixed so that they don't occur again." Salazar will travel on Thursday to the department's field office in Colorado -- the eye of the scandal storm -- to discuss...

WASHINGTON - Big industries are waging an intense lobbying effort to block new, tougher limits on air pollution that is blamed for hundreds of heart attacks, deaths and cases of asthma, bronchitis and other breathing problems. The Environmental Protection Agency is to decide within weeks whether to reduce the allowable amount of ozone — commonly referred to as smog — in the air. A tougher standard would require hundreds of counties across the country to find new ways to reduce smog-causing emissions of nitrogen oxides and chemical compounds from tailpipes and smokestacks. Groups representing manufacturers, automakers, electric utilities, grocers and...

MOSCOW (AFP) - A major oil spill off the southern coast of Russia could take months to clear, a top environmentalist said on Wednesday as the first charges were brought over the accident. Some 2,000 tonnes of fuel oil seeped into environmentally sensitive waters of the Kerch Strait in the northeastern corner of the Black Sea, after a fierce storm on Sunday wrecked five ships including an oil tanker. "It will take nearly a week to clear the coast of pollution and months to eliminate fuel oil from the sea surface," Igor Chestin, head of the Russian branch of the...

A tidy-up in Raleigh could spell sore legs for bus riders -- at least for now. The city wants to rid streets of shopping carts that get pushed away from markets and become makeshift benches for Raleigh's bus passengers. On many corners, an overturned cart is a rider's only comfort. Of about 1,700 stops, more than 1,300 lack benches. "You can't blame them for wanting to sit down somewhere," Assistant City Manager Julian Prosser said. Taking a cart off-premises already violates state law, along with city ordinances, said Philip Isley, chairman of the City Council's Law and Public Safety Committee....

Soldiers of the Army Reserve 329th Chemical Company, Multi-National Corps-Iraq, utilize the ‘shower’ area to clean off any nitric acid residue. Photo by Army Spc. Beatrice Florescu. BAGHDAD — Soldiers of the Army Reserve 329th Chemical Company, Multi-National Corps-Iraq, work in dangerous environments, here and in the United States. They are called upon when chemical waste or hazardous material is in need of identification, isolation, removal and disposal.During one mission, the Soldiers had to operate quickly and accurately while receiving small arms fire, said Army Sgt. 1st Class Timothy Hart, 329th Chem. Co., MNC-I.Every cleanup mission involves thorough planning. It...

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) -- As the nation's coal-fired power plants work to create cleaner skies, they'll likely fill up landfills with millions more tons of potentially harmful ash. More than one-third of the ash generated at the country's hundreds of coal-fired plants is now recycled -- mixed with cement to build highways or used to stabilize embankments, among other things. But in a process being used increasingly across the nation, chemicals are injected into plants' emissions to capture airborne pollutants. That, in turn, changes the composition of the ash and cuts its usefulness. It can't be used in cement, for...