Fukushima is out of the news mostly but the problem has NOT gone away. The spent fuel in Unit 4 continues to be housed in a perilous state. The building seems to be sinking, due to seismic damage, about 80 cm – 2.5 feet – so far. The situation is not stable and should be condiered to be deteriorating. The damage of another . . . → Read More: Fukushima Unit 4 Problems
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New article by Elizabeth Douglas at InsideClimate News interviews Peter Lam who has an impressive background as a Nuclear Industry regulator. Lam changed his mind on the use of probability statistics in nuclear disaster preparations. He says: One can plan for a lot of things, but things don’t always happen according to what you plan for. … Sure, I think everybody’s doing the . . . → Read More: Nuclear power is an unforgiving technology Drone manufacturers are considering offering police the option of arming remote-controlled aircraft with (nonlethal for now) weapons like rubber bullets, Tasers, and tear gas… . . . → Read More: Weapons for US based drones coming soon to a sky near you Fukushima is still in the news. Reuters reports today that the initial estimates of the amount of radiation released are now known to have been 2 and a half times too low. Tepco will be nationalized due to the exceptionally large losses after the accident. Reuters also reports what we first surmised the clean up will probably take 30 years. In the meantime . . . → Read More: Fukushima Mon Amour Stephen of the Japan Times Online published an interview with Lest Brown of the Gloom, doom — and Lester Brown’s ‘Plan B (hat tip nakedcapitalism). In it he quotes Brown: How can we assume that the growth of an economic system that is shrinking the Earth’s forests, eroding its soils, depleting its aquifers, collapsing its fisheries, elevating its temperature and melting its ice . . . → Read More: Gloom, doom — and Lester Brown’s ‘Plan B’ The New York Times takes up the report which I commented on yesterday about the possibility of the China Syndrome. Molten nuclear fuel may have bored into the floor of at least one of the reactors at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the complex’s operator said Wednesday, citing a new simulation of the accident that crippled the plant in March. … . . . → Read More: China Syndrome – Update 
This is the first that i have read of the potential for a core escape into the earth’s crust at Fukushima. In an article on Fukushima Diary, Uehara Haruo, called the Architect of Reactor 3, warns of a potential for hydrovolcanic explosion. I read a translation of the source page for this information at the livedoor site. Piecing the Google translation bits together . . . → Read More: Fukushima – China Syndrome? I had posted that the radiation was moving farther afield earlier, bu now it look like the Telegraph is reporting that the Tokyo radiation spikes were caused by old radium bottles. Wow. But I guess from a public health point of view it is good that they were found. Paul Allen has written in Technology Review on his view contra Kurzweil: The Singularity Isn’t Near . He mentions the “complexity brake” on scientific progress. . . . → Read More: Complexity brake on understanding the brain The AFP reports that radiation of nearly evacuation levels has been found just north of Tokyo in a neighborhood belonging to the capital city. Japanese media said researchers found radiation levels of 3.35 microsieverts per hour along a street in the west of the capital — 220 . . . → Read More: Radiation in Tokyo |
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