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<p>TOKYO (AP) A new probe at Japan's crippled nuclear power plant has found fatal radiation levels and hardly any cooling water inside one of the reactors, renewing concerns about the plant's stability.</p> <p>The operator of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant says an endoscopic examination Tuesday detected radiation levels up to 10 times the fatal dose inside the No. 2 reactor's contain chamber, suggesting challenges ahead in shutting down the facility.</p>

We noted in August that some parts of Tokyo have more radiation than existed in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zones. And see this and this. There are indications that radiation levels are increasing in Tokyo. Nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen took 5 random soil samples in Tokyo recently, and found that all 5 were so radioactive that they would be considered radioactive waste in the United States, which would have to be specially disposed of at a facility in Texas:

In the early 1980s, a Taiwan steel company accidentally mixed some highly radioactive cobalt-60 into a batch of steel rebar. The radioactive rods were then used in the construction of 1,700 apartments. As a result, people living in these buildings were subject to radiation up to 30 times the normal amount received from the natural background. When dismayed officials discovered this enormous error 15 years later, they surveyed past and present apartment dwellers expecting to find an epidemic of cancer. Normal incidence would have predicted 160 cancers among the 10,000 residents. To their astonishment, the researchers discovered only five cases...

All but two of Japan’s 54 commercial reactors have gone offline since the nuclear disaster a year ago, after the earthquake and tsunami, and it is not clear when they can be restarted. With the last operating reactor scheduled to be idled as soon as next month, Japan — once one of the world’s leaders in atomic energy — will have at least temporarily shut down an industry that once generated a third of its electricity. With few alternatives, the prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda, has called for restarting the plants as soon as possible, saying he supports a gradual phase-out...

How the Yakuza went nuclear What really went wrong at the Fukushima plant? One undercover reporter risked his life to find out By Jake Adelstein 11:30AM GMT 21 Feb 2012 /snip Tepco has long been a scandal-ridden company, caught time and time again covering up data on safety lapses at their power plants, or doctoring film footage which showed fissures in pipes. How was the company able to get away with such long-standing behaviour? According to an explosive book recently published in Japan, they owe it to what the author, Tomohiko Suzuki, calls “Japan’s nuclear mafia… A conglomeration of corrupt...

It’s been one of the mysteries of Japan’s ongoing nuclear disaster: How much of the damage did the March 11 earthquake inflict on Fukushima Daiichi’s reactors in the 40 minutes before the devastating tsunami arrived? The stakes are high: If the quake alone structurally compromised the plant and the safety of its nuclear fuel, then every other similar reactor in Japan is at risk. Throughout the months of lies and misinformation, one story has stuck: “The earthquake knocked out the plant’s electric power, halting cooling to its reactors,” as the government spokesman Yukio Edano said at a March 15 press...

Minami Soma City assemblyman Koichi Ooyama discloses the result of the test of the mysterious black dust found in locations in Minami Soma City, Fukushima Prefecture. A blogger whom I featured before, "Night that never ends", has been measuring radiation on the strange, black dust he finds in many locations in Minami Soma City, mostly on the road surface. His geiger counter (Inspector) measures all alpha, beta, gamma radiations and x-ray, and his measurement on the surface of this black dust was 295 microsieverts/hour. Assemblyman Ooyama apparently sent the sample to Professor Tomoya Yamauchi of Kobe University. Professor Yamauchi did...

TEPCO blames high reactor temperature reading on broken thermometer National Feb. 14, 2012 - 06:40AM JST ( 10 ) TOKYO — A rapidly rising temperature reading at one of the reactors in Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant that sparked fears of another meltdown is probably caused by a broken thermometer, TEPCO said Monday. Scientists have been watching the equipment for around a week as it slowly rose above 35 degrees Celsius that the two other temperature gauges on the No. 2 reactor showed. There were concerns when it exceeded 80 degrees that a spontaneous nuclear reaction had started in the...

Fukushima No. 2 reactor temperature up to 82C, but not critical: TEPCO TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Sunday the temperature at the bottom of the No. 2 reactor at its crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant rose further to 82 C, but the reactor has not gone critical. While the thermometer reading at shortly after 2 p.m. marked a new high since the reactor attained a cold shutdown in December, the utility known as TEPCO said it has confirmed that sustained nuclear reactions are not taking place in the reactor as no radioactive xenon has been detected...

What if you were promoting an industry that had the potential to kill and injure enormous numbers of people as well as contaminate large areas of land for tens of thousands of years? What if this industry created vast stockpiles of deadly waste but nevertheless required massive amounts of public funding to keep it going? My guess is that you might want to hide that information. From the heyday of the environmental movement in the late 1960s through the late 1970s, many people were openly skeptical about the destructive potential of the nuclear power industry. After the partial meltdown at...

Temperature remains high at damaged reactor An unknown rise in temperature at one of the reactors at the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant is troubling its operator. Tokyo Electric says the temperature hasn't gone down even after it increased the volume of cooling water on Tuesday. One of the thermometers at the bottom of reactor No. 2 at the Fukushima Daiichi plant gradually rose to about 70 degrees Celsius since January 27th. It had stayed around 45 degrees before. In an effort to lower the temperature, the operator increased the amount of water sprayed on the nuclear fuel by 3 tons...

The Prometheus Trap / Order to Suspend Radiation Monitoring February 06, 2012 By YUMI NAKAYAMA / Staff Writer According to Greek mythology, it was Prometheus who gave fire to humans. The acquisition of fire allowed humankind to develop civilization. Fire derived from fossil fuels further spurred production capacity. In time, humans attained atomic fire, a feat that was also described as "superior energy." Playing with fire, however, has presented humans with a dilemma. Humans, who achieved a civilized world through Prometheus, are now troubled by atomic fire. The series of articles contemplate the country, its citizens and electric power in...

Temperature Soars Mysteriously Inside Fukushima Nuclear Reactor Updated: Monday, 06 Feb 2012, 9:22 AM EST Published : Monday, 06 Feb 2012, 9:22 AM EST By NewsCore TOKYO - The temperature of a reactor at Japan's stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has soared and remained mysteriously high Monday, despite more water being pumped through it. The facility's No.2 reactor had reached 164 degrees Fahrenheit (73.3 degrees Celsius) by Monday morning, after sitting at 113 degrees Fahrenheit (45 degrees Celsius) on Jan. 27, broadcaster NHK reported. That was despite Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) officials pumping 9.6 tonnes (10.6 tons) of water...

Temperature rises at Fukushima No.2 reactor The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant says the temperature in the No.2 reactor remains high despite the injection of additional water. A thermometer at the bottom of the reactor showed 73.3 degrees Celsius on Monday morning. It was around 45 degrees on January 27th and 71.7 degrees at 4 PM on Sunday. Tokyo Electric Power Company began injecting 10.6 tons of water per hour from around 1:30 AM on Monday. That's one ton more per hour than before. The utility says 2 other thermometers placed at the bottom of the reactor have...

More leaks found at crippled Japan nuclear plant By MARI YAMAGUCHI (February 3rd, 2012 @ 8:20am) Associated Press TOKYO (AP) - Leaks of radioactive water have become more frequent at Japan's crippled nuclear power plant less than two months after it was declared basically stable. /snip Workers spotted a leak Friday at a water reprocessing unit which released enough beta rays to cause radiation sickness, TEPCO spokesman Junichi Matsumoto said. He said no one was injured and the leak stopped after bolts were tightened on a tank. /snip The structural integrity of the damaged Unit 4 reactor building has long...

Major new leak at Japan's nuclear plant - Kyodo 01 Feb 2012 22:38 Source: reuters // Reuters Feb 2 (Reuters) - More than 8 tonnes of water have leaked from Japan's stricken nuclear power plant after a frozen pipe burst inside a reactor buiding, but none of the water is thought to have escaped the complex, Kyodo news agency said on Thursday. Kyodo, quoting the Fukushima plant's operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco), said the water had leaked from the No.4 reactor when a pipe "dropped off" but that the liquid had all been contained inside the reactor building. The...

As days go by, food in Japan doesn't look very appetizing, to say the least. 1. Radioactive mandarin orange from Kanagawa Prefecture Radioactive cesium was found from the edible part of mandarin oranges (which in the US are called "satsuma" for some reason) and the skin. Security Tokyo is a private testing laboratory that uses the high-precision germanium semiconductor detector, not one of those fly-by-night testing "laboratories" cropping up in Japan (like the one who claimed to have "measured" high radioactive "iodine" in the snow in Hachioji. Totally false. Did I write about it? I don't remember...) But here's the...

From UC Davis News and Information (1/26/2012; emphasis is mine): Japan used seawater to cool nuclear fuel at the stricken Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant after the tsunami in March 2011 -- and that was probably the best action to take at the time, says Professor Alexandra Navrotsky of the University of California, Davis. But Navrotsky and others have since discovered a new way in which seawater can corrode nuclear fuel, forming uranium compounds that could potentially travel long distances, either in solution or as very small particles. The research team published its work Jan. 23 in the journal Proceedings of the...

The radioactivity dispersion simulation JCOPE (Japan Coastal Ocean Predictability Experiment) by JAMSTEC (Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology), showing cesium-137 dispersion in the Pacific Ocean from March 21, 2011 to January 27, 2012. March 21, 2011 was when the high levels of radioactive materials from the seawater near the plant were first detected. Screenshots from their JCOPE page with the simulation animation (1/30/2012).

(UPDATE: The document issued by the Fukushima Prefecture's expert committee is here (PDF, in Japanese). Total number of children tested: 3765 No. of children found with lumps 5.1 millimeter or larger: 26 No. of children found with lumps less than 5.1 millimeter: 56 No. of children found with cysts 20.1 millimeter or larger: 0 No. of children found with cyst less than 20.1 millimeter: 1086 No. of children with no lumps, cysts: 2622 There are children who have both lump and cyst. ============================================ Waaaiiit a minute... I was looking for more information on the post I wrote about the lumps...

Shepard Smith looks like he's going down hill very quickly. Has anyone heard anything about his status? I don't mean to make light of it or wish him ill but it looks like something is going on.

TOKYO: A 5.7-magnitude earthquake struck eastern Japan on Thursday near the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, but did not cause any further problems at the power station, officials said. The quake hit in the Pacific, 22 kilometres (14 miles) east of Iwaki in southern Fukushima, at 12:20 pm (0320 GMT) at a depth of nine kilometres, the US Geological Survey said. A tsunami was not expected, said the Japan Meteorological Agency, and there were no immediate reports of damage. Nuclear plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) said the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant remained stable.

There have been a number of odd happenings recently at the plant. What they all mean right now is not totally clear. On January 2nd, the day after the widespread new years quake, the radioactive fallout levels in Fukushima and also in Chiba spiked. A weird white ash was reported by some in Chiba, no word if this is related in any way. On January 6th the cesium levels detected leaking out of unit 3′s intake canal tripled in one day. We still have no explanation for the rush of police cars, fire engines and two buses of workers to...

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...

NHK: Radiation so high at Reactor No. 3 that still no gas detector in place — “Building must be decontaminated” just to install device (VIDEO)

Another Asian Fukushima Imminent? Taiwan imports 99 percent of its energy, which is vital to its rapidly industrializing economy. The island nation's electricity demand was recently growing at almost 5 percent per year, but this is slowing to about 3.3 percent per annum to 2013. Nuclear power has been a significant part of the electricity supply for two decades and now provides 17 percent of the country's overall energy needs. But this has come at a potential cost. The country's three nuclear power plants (NPPs) comprise four General Electric boiling water reactors and two Westinghouse pressurized water reactors. Taiwan launched its nuclear power project...

Experts not sure if woes, from hair loss to bloody lesions, tied to Fukushima nuclear plant. SEATTLE — Scientists in Alaska are investigating whether local seals are being sickened by radiation from Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant. Scores of ring seals have washed up on Alaska's Arctic coastline since July, suffering or killed by a mysterious disease marked by bleeding lesions on the hind flippers, irritated skin around the nose and eyes and patchy hair loss on the animals' fur coats. Biologists at first thought the seals were suffering from a virus...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – December 19, 2011 -- An estimated 14,000 excess deaths in the United States are linked to the radioactive fallout from the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear reactors in Japan, according to a major new article in the December 2011 edition of the International Journal of Health Services. This is the first peer-reviewed study published in a medical journal documenting the health hazards of Fukushima........Just six days after the disastrous meltdowns struck four reactors at Fukushima on March 11, scientists detected the plume of toxic fallout had arrived over American shores. Subsequent measurements by the U.S. Environmental Protection...

Previously unseen footage taken from a car's onboard camera has been recovered, and shows the moment the Japanese tsunami hits a busy highway and the ensuing chaos that follows.

Impact Seen As Roughly Comparable to Radiation-Related Deaths After Chernobyl; Infants Are Hardest Hit, With Continuing Research Showing Even Higher Possible Death Count An estimated 14,000 excess deaths in the United States are linked to the radioactive fallout from the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear reactors in Japan, according to a major new article in the December 2011 edition of the International Journal of Health Services. This is the first peer-reviewed study published in a medical journal documenting the health hazards of Fukushima.Authors Joseph Mangano and Janette Sherman note that their estimate of 14,000 excess U.S. deaths in the 14...

As Prime Minister Noda plans to ask China if he can borrow pandas for the disaster recovery in Miyagi, Minister of Economy Yukio Edano wants to give gift certificates to all people in Fukushima as compensation for the nuclear accident. Gift certificates are to be used only within Fukushima Prefecture, in order to promote economic recovery of Fukushima. Fukushima Minpo reported the news only in its print version (12/23/2011). Here's partial translation from the image of the article (article image is posted on my Japanese blog): Idea to distribute gift certificates to all Fukushima residents, as compensation for the residents...

52 Workers at TEPCO Nuclear Plant Infected with Norovirus Tokyo, Dec. 17 (Jiji Press)--A total of 52 workers at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s <9501> crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant have been infected with norovirus, the utility said Saturday. The workers, who are employees of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. <7011> and affiliated companies, were installing storage tanks for sludge accumulated after radioactive water decontamination. Some of them was hospitalized but most are getting better after receiving treatment. The number of patients may increase further, according to the plant operator, known as TEPCO. According to TEPCO, the workers reported symptoms...

December 17, 2011 Fukushima tofu makers not deterred by food concerns FUKUSHIMA--As paranoia over contaminated food has the nation on edge, workers in the Tatsugoyama district of Fukushima city are busy producing the local specialty, freeze-dried tofu. "While we worried about the effects from the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, we are relieved because radiation tests by the prefectural government before we shipped out the products found no problems," said Yukio Kurosawa, 75, who has been making dried tofu for 50 years.

Japan's prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda, has declared an end to the most critical phase of the accident at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, but conceded that the crisis is far from over. In a nationally televised address on Friday, Noda said the plant had been brought to a state of "cold shutdown", a significant step towards resolving the crisis, nine months after it was struck by a powerful earthquake and tsunami that left almost 20,000 people dead and missing along the country's north-east coast.

'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...

First debris from Japanese earthquake/tsunami reaches Olympic Peninsula By Arwyn Rice  Peninsula Daily News    Oceanographer Jim Ingraham answers questions about the islands of debris from the March 11 Japan tsunami that are slowly floating toward the Pacific Northwest. Behind him is a float, found east of Neah Bay, that is believed to be the first identified piece of wreckage to arrive via ocean currents. -- Photo by Arwyn Rice/Peninsula Daily News  PORT ANGELES — The first piece of debris that could be identified as washing up on the West Coast from the March 11 tsunami in Japan —...

High radioactive cesium levels found at Tokyo school December 14, 2011 By TOMOKO SAITO / Staff Writer Radioactive cesium more than 10 times the standard for waste disposal has been detected on lawn covers that had been placed in a schoolyard from mid-March until early April at Horinouchi Elementary School in Tokyo's Suginami Ward. The measured value, 90,600 becquerels of radioactive cesium per kilogram, was more than triple the 26,400 becquerels contained in sludge at a sewage treatment facility in Koriyama, Fukushima Prefecture, about 60 kilometers from the disabled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. "The cover, with its wide...

A very well-written article from New York Times by Martin Fackler, on December 6, 2011. I translated this article and posted on my Japanese blog, but the futility of so-called "decontamination" is best summarized, to me, by the photo that the New York Times put at the top of the article: Even the ardent supporter for the residents' return by decontaminating the towns and cities, Professor Tatsuhiko Kodama of Tokyo University, has this to say: “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...

There are foreign nuclear experts who have said the explosion in Reactor 3 on March 14 at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant was a nuclear explosion. But this Japanese engineer and whistleblower at JNES (Japan Nuclear Energy Safety Organization) Setsuo Fujiwara says there were two explosions at Reactor 3: a hydrogen explosion, and a nuclear explosion at the Spent Fuel Pool. The following is my best-effort translation of the interview Fujiwara did with the SPA magazine, without detailed technical knowledge of nuclear physics, subject to revision. From Zakzak (12/13/2011): "The explosion in Reactor 3 at Fukushima I Nuke Plant on...

SENTAKU MAGAZINE Real cause of nuclear crisis Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco), the operator of the stricken Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Station, has been insisting that the culprit that caused the nuclear crisis was the huge tsunami that hit the plant after the March 11 earthquake. But evidence is mounting that the meltdown at the nuclear power plant was actually caused by the earthquake itself. According to a science journalist well versed in the matter, Tepco is afraid that if the earthquake were to be determined as the direct cause of the accident, the government would have to review...

A very well-written article from New York Times by Martin Fackler, on December 6, 2011. I translated this article and posted on my Japanese blog, but the futility of so-called "decontamination" is best summarized, to me, by the photo that the New York Times put at the top of the article: Even the ardent supporter for the residents' return by decontaminating the towns and cities, Professor Tatsuhiko Kodama of Tokyo University, has this to say: “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...

The manufacturer will replace 400,000 cans of its baby formula free of charge. The brand that radioactive cesium has been found is "Meiji Step", a formula designed for infants 9 months and older. As the article by Sponichi below states, Meiji is the largest manufacturer of baby formulas with 40% market share. Meiji did its own testing and disclosed the number. Will other makers follow suit? SNIP "Meiji Step", a baby formula manufactured and sold by Meiji (headquartered in Tokyo), one of the largest food manufacturers in Japan, has been found with the maximum 30.8 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium by...

Radioactive cesium found in Meiji baby formula TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Radioactive cesium of up to 30.8 becquerels per kilogram has been found in baby formula manufactured and sold by Meiji Co., sources familiar with the matter said Tuesday, citing a sampling by the major food company. While it is unclear how the isotope got into the powdered milk, retailed as "Meiji Step," the company suspects a link with the radioactive leaks from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant damaged by the March earthquake and tsunami, they said. Radioactive cesium has been found in baby formula for the first time since...

Strontium-tainted water leak suspected The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says about 45 tons of strontium-tainted water may have leaked out of a water treatment device, with a portion of it spilling out of the facility. Tokyo Electric Power Company says the water may contain high levels of radioactive strontium. Strontium causes internal radiation exposure. The company is trying to determine whether the water reached the sea. The utility said at about 11:30 am on Sunday a water leak was spotted in a device to remove salt from contaminated water from which radioactive material had already been...

Confusion clouds Education Ministry notices on radiation levels in school lunches A radiation contamination guideline of 40 becquerels per kilogram that the government introduced in connection with school lunches was actually meant for selecting radiation measuring equipment, the ministry has announced. On Nov. 30, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology sent 17 prefectures notices that could be interpreted as stating that the limit for radiation in ingredients for school-provided lunches was 40 becquerels per kilogram, and in a news conference on Dec. 1, Senior Vice Minister Yuko Mori confirmed this. On Dec. 2, however, Minister Masaharu Nakagawa...

Cesium-137 deposits 50 times more than previous record BY YUMI NAKAYAMA STAFF WRITER TSUKUBA, Ibaraki Prefecture--Nearly 30,000 becquerels per square meter of cesium-137 fell on Tsukuba in March as a result of the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, the government's Meteorological Research Institute said Dec. 1.

Fukushima: Japanese produce linked to newscaster's cancer Date: 13 November 2011 Posted By : Special to The Canadian A Japanese newscaster who usually reports the news, has now made the news in Japan. Norikazu Otsuka, a Japanese TV newscaster, has been diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia and is now hospitalized, getting ready for chemo. He felt a strange lump in his neck on October 28, he says. -- Various news sources including: Zakzak 11/7/2011, Yomiuri Shinbun 11/6/2011 have also filed reports. “In his morning program on Fuji TV he’s been promoting Fukushima produce by eating them in the show. He...

Xenon 400,000 times normal found in Chiba air immediately after Fukushima nuke accident CHIBA -- Radioactive xenon-133 some 400,000 times normal levels was detected in the atmosphere here immediately after the outbreak of the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, a radiation survey organization said. It took three months before the volume of radioactive substances returned to normal levels. The Chiba-based Japan Chemical Analysis Center made the announcement during a radiation research session in Tokyo on Dec. 1, organized by the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry. Keisuke Isogai from the center denied that the high...