Now & Then
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That was then and this is now. The old pack of Fukushima lies is stale. The timelines are wrong. The reactor statuses are misrepresented. The radionuclide emissions are wrong. The Pacific pollution is understated. The groundwater pollution is not mentioned. TEPCO lied to the Japanese government. Japan lied to the world. GE lied to the US government. The US government lied to the citizenry. Obama gave the ‘all clear’ and immediately evacuated to South America, with his family.
---- Then ---- UPDATED April 29, 2011
Status of the Nuclear Reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/18/world/asia/18japan.html?_r=1&hp=&pagew...
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/16/world/asia/reactors-status...
---- Now ----
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/13/world/asia/13japan.html?_r=1&partner=r...
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/13/world/asia/13japan.html?hp
TOKYO — On the evening of March 12, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant’s oldest reactor had suffered a hydrogen explosion and risked a complete meltdown. Prime Minister Naoto Kan asked aides to weigh the risks of injecting seawater into the reactor to cool it down. Mr. Kan did not know that the plant manager had already begun using seawater. Based on a guess of the mood at the prime minister’s office, the company ordered the plant manager to stop. On March 12, about 28 hours after the tsunami struck, Tepco executives had ordered workers to start injecting seawater into Reactor No. 1. But 21 minutes later, they ordered the plant’s manager, Masao Yoshida, to suspend the operation. They were relying on an account by the Tepco liaison to the prime minister, who reported back that he seemed to be against it.
But the manager did something unthinkable in corporate Japan: he disobeyed the order and secretly continued using seawater, a decision that experts say almost certainly prevented a more serious meltdown and has made him an unlikely hero. Mr. Yoshida chose to ignore the order. The injections were the only way left to cool the reactor, and halting them would mean possibly causing an even more severe meltdown and release of radiation, experts said.
Mr. Yoshida had the authority as the plant manager to make the decision, said Junichi Matsumoto, a senior official at Tepco. And indeed, guidelines from the International Atomic Energy Agency specify that technical decisions should be left to plant managers because a timely response is critical, said Sung Key-yong, a nuclear accident expert who participated in the agency’s recent fact-finding mission to Japan.
After revealing in May that he had ignored the order, Mr. Yoshida explained himself to a television reporter by saying that “suspending the seawater could have meant death” for those at the plant. Mr. Kan said Mr. Yoshida was the only one he could trust inside Tepco. Last week, Tepco gave Mr. Yoshida its lightest punishment of a verbal reprimand for defying the order.
Bill Duff
‘Abandon Ship’
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Then on March 14, the gravity of the plant’s situation was revealed by a second explosion, this time at Reactor No. 3, and a startling request that night from Tepco’s president, Masataka Shimizu: that Tepco be allowed to withdraw its employees from the plant because it had become too dangerous to remain.
When he heard this, Mr. Kan flew into a rage, said aides and advisers who were present. Abandoning the plant would mean losing control of the four stricken reactors; the next day, explosions occurred at the two remaining active reactors, No. 2 and No. 4. “This is not a joke,” the prime minister yelled, according to the aides. “Withdrawing from the plant is out of the question,” Mr. Kan told them.
Advisers said the placement of Mr. Hosono in Tepco was a turning point, helping the prime minister to take direct control of damage-control efforts at the plant. “For the first time, we knew what Tepco was debating, and what they knew.” The move came too late. “We should have moved faster,” said Masanori Aritomi, a nuclear engineer at the Tokyo Institute of Technology and an adviser to Mr. Kan. Mr. Aritomi said that even with Mr. Hosono stationed inside Tepco, the company still did not disclose crucial information until mid-May, including final confirmation that three of the plant’s four active reactors had melted down.
Doh!
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Mr. Terada and other advisers said they did not learn of the nationwide system of radiation detectors known as the System for Prediction of Environmental Emergency Dose Information, or Speedi existence until March 16, five days into the crisis.
If they had known earlier, they would have seen Speedi’s early projections that radiation from the Fukushima plant would be blown northwest, said one critic, Hiroshi Kawauchi, a lawmaker in Mr. Kan’s own party. Mr. Kawauchi said that many of the residents around the plant who evacuated went north, on the assumption that winds blew south during winter in that area. That took them directly into the radioactive plume, he said — exposing them to the very radiation that they were fleeing.
Mr. Kawauchi said that when he asked officials at the Ministry of Education, which administers Speedi, why they did not make the information available to the prime minister in those first crucial days, they replied that the prime minister’s office had not asked them for it.
Oh, & by the way…
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http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110613p2g00m0dm002000c.html
TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Radioactive strontium up to 240 times the legal concentration limit has been detected in seawater samples collected near an intake at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Sunday.
TEPCO said the substance was also found in groundwater near the plant's Nos. 1 and 2 reactors. The government's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said it is the first time that the substance has been found in groundwater.
The agency said it is necessary to carefully monitor the possible effects of the strontium on fishery products near the plant.
Strontium tends to accumulate in bones and is ‘believed’ (documented/demonstrated/proven) to cause bone cancer and leukemia.
Time is of the essence
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http://mdn.mainichi.jp/features/news/20110611p2a00m0na012000c.html
Anxiety has visited the Ishida district in Date city. On April 10, it was announced that there was a location here where it was predicted residents could have exposure to over 20 millisieverts per year of radiation. Almost two months later, on June 5, the government's nuclear disaster response headquarters held a conference for residents. "Even after radiation over 20 millisieverts per year was found here, you still haven't told the area it should evacuate. Tell us what's dangerous and what isn't," said one resident.
Takayoshi Tashiro, 27, was another resident who spoke out, asking if pregnant women would be safe. Takayoshi and his wife Ayano, 26, had a baby girl half a year ago. She is now pregnant with another child, who is due to arrive in fall. The Tashiros searched for an apartment in a low radiation area within Date city, but they were unable to find one. In late May, the city began collecting evacuees' requests for housing, and it was decided that the Tashiros would move into public housing in late June. "We wanted to move sooner. How much radiation have we been exposed to? Will our daughter, or the child my wife is pregnant with, be OK?" worries Takayoshi.
Latest USA cover-story
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Within 48 hours of the earthquake, officials from the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission arrived in Tokyo, but they were unable to get information or even arrange meetings with Japanese counterparts. Meanwhile, Washington became convinced that Tokyo was understating the damage at the plant, based on readings that the Americans were getting around the plant from aircraft and satellites normally used to monitor North Korean nuclear tests, said one American official, who asked not to be named.
White House Lies
White House Lies
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If you prefer your federal lies from a particular source …
Obama gives the ‘all clear’ signal for Fukushima, bombs Libya and evacuates to South America.
Links to 'Obama Bugs Out'
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/world/americas/20obama-brazil.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870405020457621866035895309...
http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2011/03/18/obamas-south-america-trip-f...
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2011/0318/High-hopes-for-Obama-s...
Why shouldn't he have gone
Why shouldn't he have gone to south America with his family.I know many who took "vacations" he knew dangers And couldn't wreck the us economy by scaring our ignorant population with maybes or educated speculation of catastrophic releases.
Did warning pregnant women
Did warning pregnant women and children in France wreck their economy?
Very curious on that.
The prez didn't need to run, the whitehouse is a fallout shelter.
And maybe the population wouldn't be ignorant if the Fourth Estate
would step up and do their job.
Women and children Warning
that is a fair point .
But our economy is so weak
But our economy is so weak any little catalyst could push it over the edge into the abyss.
BS
BS
Paranoid
The poster above does seem rather paranoid about economics, as opposed to more rational concerns such as survival and health.
Where does the notion arise that lying, cheating, stealing, deception, fraud and reckless endangerment; contribute to a healthy economy?
1 MILLION Cancers
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So, for example,
How would a million unnecessary, new cancers improve the economy of the USA?
'Mums the word' may keep GE stock out of the toilet for a quarter or two. Silence is against the best interests: of the USA, the economy, citizen health and government credibility.
'Mums the word' is in brief, against good public policy.
Bravo
:)
Bravo,
Very well put!
:)
Obama lied and bugged
Obama lied and bugged out
The lie, prevented APPROPRIATE responses by the US citizenry
The running was cowardly
Bill, everyone who readily
Bill, everyone who readily could did the very same thing. Did we in all cases inform others of why we were really leaving? Of course not but only because they wouldn't understand. They would think us quacks and ridicule us. So we just took vacations (and some of us are still on these vacations).
Duty to act
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Private citizens have no formal 'duty to act'. Discretion is the better part of valor. There is no rancor against those who acted prudently. I sincerely wish the best of health to those who stayed and those who left. The same will hold true if there is a 2nd massive round of radioactive fallout from Japan.
The governments of Japan and the USA do have obligations to inform, issue warnings to their citizenry and to the international community, and to act, in such circumstances.
Virtually every public official in Japan and North America was and remains grossly derelict in this duty.
He bugged out to South
He bugged out to South America to push more nuke plants, how many of us did that? I'm sure he has a nice supply of ex-rad in the fall out shelter we call the white house.
KNOW WHEN TO RUN!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn481KcjvMo
Songwriter: SCHLITZ, DON, Singer KENNY ROGERS
You've got to know when to hold 'em Know when to fold 'em
Know when to walk away And know when to run
You never count your money When you're sittin' at the table
There'll be time enough for countin' When the dealin's done
On a warm summer's eve On a train bound for nowhere
I met up with the gambler We were both too tired to sleep
So we took turns a-starin' Out the window at the darkness
The boredom overtook us, he began to speak
He said, "Son, I've made a life Out of readin' people's faces
Knowin' what the cards were By the way they held their eyes
So if you don't mind my sayin' I can see you're out of aces
For a taste of your whiskey I'll give you some advice"
So I handed him my bottle And he drank down my last swallow
Then he bummed a cigarette And asked me for a light
And the night got deathly quiet And his faced lost all expression
He said, "If you're gonna play the game, boy You gotta learn to play it right
Every gambler knows That the secret to survivin'
Is knowin' what to throw away And knowin' what to keep
'Cause every hand's a winner And every hand's a loser
And the best that you can hope for Is to die in your sleep"
And when he finished speakin' He turned back toward the window
Crushed out his cigarette And faded off to sleep
And somewhere in the darkness The gambler he broke even
And in his final words I found an ace that I could keep