Tuesday, April 14, 2015 12:37:57 AM
Survey robot breaks down inside Fukushima No. 1 reactor in under three hours
JIJI Apr 11, 2015
FUKUSHIMA – A remote-controlled robot inserted to survey the inside of the No. 1 reactor at the damaged Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant has stopped functioning, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said.
As a first step in the utility’s effort to remove melted nuclear fuel from the bottom of the unit’s primary containment vessel, the shape-shifting robot was sent in Friday morning to find the exact location of the highly radioactive debris.
Set to cover some 20 meters of the first floor on the first day, the robot began its trip at around 11:20 a.m. but halted at around 2:10 p.m. after completing two-thirds of the route, Tepco said.
The utility said footage from the robot’s camera shows it passed an opening leading to the vessel’s basement, where the molten fuel is believed to have ended up after the core meltdowns occurred after the March 2011 quake and tsunami.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/04/11/national/science-health/survey-robot-breaks-down-inside-fukushima-no-1-reactor-in-under-three-hours/#.VSyXG5N1WM9
===
Nuclear power to be less than 20% of Japan’s energy mix in 2030: sources
Kyodo Apr 14, 2015
The Japanese government is planning to set the target for the ratio of nuclear power generation to the country’s total electricity production in 2030 a little below 20 percent, compared with 28.6 percent in fiscal 2010, when the Fukushima nuclear crisis occurred, sources said Monday.
The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, which is close to major manufacturers, had been aiming to set a goal of 20 percent or more, viewing promoting renewable energy as costly.
But Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government has leaned toward the view it would be difficult to win public support in its energy policy if the target ratio of nuclear power is set at the 20 percent level as seen before the crisis. As a result, the sources said, the target could be set at 18 to 19 percent.
Some lawmakers in the ruling bloc led by Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party, however, remain cautious about lowering the ratio below 20 percent, so preparations for creating the country’s new future energy mix may not go smoothly.
The cautiousness is partly due to the necessity for Japan to cut greenhouse gas emissions to fight global warming, which means the country would burn less fuel for thermal power generation, and instead seek to restart nuclear reactors confirmed safe by regulators.
All of Japan’s nuclear reactors have remained offline amid safety concerns following the March 2011 disaster in Fukushima.
The industry ministry is planning to have a panel of experts make a proposal for the 2030 energy mix by the end of this month, while aiming to have the proposal approved by the ruling coalition in May.
The plan will also see Japan present its numerical goal for reducing greenhouse gas emissions based on the energy mix plan before a summit of the Group of Seven industrialized nations is held in June in Germany.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/04/14/national/nuclear-power-less-20-japans-energy-mix-2030-sources/#.VSyQUZN1WM8
===
Radiation from Fukushima is reaching the West Coast — but you don’t need to freak out
By Chris Mooney December 29, 2014
A worker walks past first storage tanks of radioactive contaminated water at tsunami-crippled Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. (EPA/Kimimasa Mayama)
The 2011 Fukushima Daiichi crisis was the worst nuclear disaster in decades, and people in Japan are still living with its consequences. One team of scientists estimated .. http://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/TenHoeveEES12.pdf .. in 2012 that the radiation released from Fukushima's four reactors may ultimately claim 130 lives and cause 180 additional cases of cancer (in addition to the exposures suffered by workers on site). Radiation releases into the ocean near the Fukushima plant also led to fisheries closures .. http://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/feature/seafood-safety-and-policy .. and bans, and a tightening of acceptable limits for radiation in Japanese seafood.
Naturally, in light of all this, many Americans have been concerned -- sometimes overly so .. http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2014/01/09/a-dose-of-straight-talk-on-fukushima-radiation-rumors/ -- that radiation from Fukushima, traveling through the vast Pacific ocean, would eventually make its way to the waters off the West Coast of the United States and Canada. And according to a new scientific paper .. http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1412814112 .. just out in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, that has indeed happened.
The paper, by John N. Smith of Fisheries and Oceans Canada .. http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/index-eng.htm .. (a government agency) and several colleagues, is the "first systematic study...of the transport of the Fukushima marine radioactivity signal to the eastern North Pacific," and concludes that radiation reached the continental shelf of Canada by June of last year, and has increased somewhat since.
But-- and here's the good news -- the levels of radiation are very low, well below levels that public health authorities cite as grounds for concern. The radiation "does not represent a threat to human health or the environment," reports the paper.
The new study is not the first to reach that conclusion. "We came up with something like 500 to 1000 times less of a dose, the hazard of the radiation of swimming in the Pacific, as a dental X Ray," says senior scientist Ken Buesseler .. http://www.whoi.edu/profile/kbuesseler/ .. of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, who was not involved in the current study. Buesseler heads a crowd-funded, citizen research project, Our Radioactive Oceans .. http://www.ourradioactiveocean.org/ , which first reported .. http://www.whoi.edu/news-release/Fukushima-detection .. the presence of small quantities of Fukushima radiation in a sample taken in August 2014 100 miles off the coast of Eureka, Calif. The radiation was at low levels, similar to that reported in the current research.
In fact, what's truly amazing about the work is that scientists are able to actually measure these very low levels of radiation at all...
More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/12/29/radiation-from-fukushima-is-reaching-the-west-coast-but-you-dont-need-to-freak-out/
JIJI Apr 11, 2015
FUKUSHIMA – A remote-controlled robot inserted to survey the inside of the No. 1 reactor at the damaged Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant has stopped functioning, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said.
As a first step in the utility’s effort to remove melted nuclear fuel from the bottom of the unit’s primary containment vessel, the shape-shifting robot was sent in Friday morning to find the exact location of the highly radioactive debris.
Set to cover some 20 meters of the first floor on the first day, the robot began its trip at around 11:20 a.m. but halted at around 2:10 p.m. after completing two-thirds of the route, Tepco said.
The utility said footage from the robot’s camera shows it passed an opening leading to the vessel’s basement, where the molten fuel is believed to have ended up after the core meltdowns occurred after the March 2011 quake and tsunami.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/04/11/national/science-health/survey-robot-breaks-down-inside-fukushima-no-1-reactor-in-under-three-hours/#.VSyXG5N1WM9
===
Nuclear power to be less than 20% of Japan’s energy mix in 2030: sources
Kyodo Apr 14, 2015
The Japanese government is planning to set the target for the ratio of nuclear power generation to the country’s total electricity production in 2030 a little below 20 percent, compared with 28.6 percent in fiscal 2010, when the Fukushima nuclear crisis occurred, sources said Monday.
The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, which is close to major manufacturers, had been aiming to set a goal of 20 percent or more, viewing promoting renewable energy as costly.
But Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government has leaned toward the view it would be difficult to win public support in its energy policy if the target ratio of nuclear power is set at the 20 percent level as seen before the crisis. As a result, the sources said, the target could be set at 18 to 19 percent.
Some lawmakers in the ruling bloc led by Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party, however, remain cautious about lowering the ratio below 20 percent, so preparations for creating the country’s new future energy mix may not go smoothly.
The cautiousness is partly due to the necessity for Japan to cut greenhouse gas emissions to fight global warming, which means the country would burn less fuel for thermal power generation, and instead seek to restart nuclear reactors confirmed safe by regulators.
All of Japan’s nuclear reactors have remained offline amid safety concerns following the March 2011 disaster in Fukushima.
The industry ministry is planning to have a panel of experts make a proposal for the 2030 energy mix by the end of this month, while aiming to have the proposal approved by the ruling coalition in May.
The plan will also see Japan present its numerical goal for reducing greenhouse gas emissions based on the energy mix plan before a summit of the Group of Seven industrialized nations is held in June in Germany.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/04/14/national/nuclear-power-less-20-japans-energy-mix-2030-sources/#.VSyQUZN1WM8
===
Radiation from Fukushima is reaching the West Coast — but you don’t need to freak out
By Chris Mooney December 29, 2014
A worker walks past first storage tanks of radioactive contaminated water at tsunami-crippled Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. (EPA/Kimimasa Mayama)
The 2011 Fukushima Daiichi crisis was the worst nuclear disaster in decades, and people in Japan are still living with its consequences. One team of scientists estimated .. http://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/TenHoeveEES12.pdf .. in 2012 that the radiation released from Fukushima's four reactors may ultimately claim 130 lives and cause 180 additional cases of cancer (in addition to the exposures suffered by workers on site). Radiation releases into the ocean near the Fukushima plant also led to fisheries closures .. http://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/feature/seafood-safety-and-policy .. and bans, and a tightening of acceptable limits for radiation in Japanese seafood.
Naturally, in light of all this, many Americans have been concerned -- sometimes overly so .. http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2014/01/09/a-dose-of-straight-talk-on-fukushima-radiation-rumors/ -- that radiation from Fukushima, traveling through the vast Pacific ocean, would eventually make its way to the waters off the West Coast of the United States and Canada. And according to a new scientific paper .. http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1412814112 .. just out in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, that has indeed happened.
The paper, by John N. Smith of Fisheries and Oceans Canada .. http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/index-eng.htm .. (a government agency) and several colleagues, is the "first systematic study...of the transport of the Fukushima marine radioactivity signal to the eastern North Pacific," and concludes that radiation reached the continental shelf of Canada by June of last year, and has increased somewhat since.
But-- and here's the good news -- the levels of radiation are very low, well below levels that public health authorities cite as grounds for concern. The radiation "does not represent a threat to human health or the environment," reports the paper.
The new study is not the first to reach that conclusion. "We came up with something like 500 to 1000 times less of a dose, the hazard of the radiation of swimming in the Pacific, as a dental X Ray," says senior scientist Ken Buesseler .. http://www.whoi.edu/profile/kbuesseler/ .. of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, who was not involved in the current study. Buesseler heads a crowd-funded, citizen research project, Our Radioactive Oceans .. http://www.ourradioactiveocean.org/ , which first reported .. http://www.whoi.edu/news-release/Fukushima-detection .. the presence of small quantities of Fukushima radiation in a sample taken in August 2014 100 miles off the coast of Eureka, Calif. The radiation was at low levels, similar to that reported in the current research.
In fact, what's truly amazing about the work is that scientists are able to actually measure these very low levels of radiation at all...
More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/12/29/radiation-from-fukushima-is-reaching-the-west-coast-but-you-dont-need-to-freak-out/
It was Plato who said, “He, O men, is the wisest, who like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing”
Join the InvestorsHub Community
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
