Japan

NOVANEWS A Unprecedented Radiation Disaster by JOHN LaFORGE US papers don’t often report on the radiation disaster continuing at Fukushima-Daiichi in Northeast Japan. But June 17 the New York Times noted: “Inside the complex, there are three wrecked reactor cores, twisted masses of hundreds of tons of highly radioactive uranium, plutonium, cesium and strontium. After the meltdown[s], which followed a tsunami and earthquake in 2011, most of the material in the reactors re-solidified, in difficult shapes and in confined spaces, wrapped around and through the structural parts of the reactors and the buildings. ¶ Or at least, that is what the engineers think. Nobody really knows, because nobody has yet examined many of the most important parts of the wreckage. Though three and a half ye...

NOVANEWS Two earthquakes rattled the imperiled coastline overnight - Lauren McCauley The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. (Photo: IAEA/ cc/ Flickr)Two sizable earthquakes struck off the coast of Japan near the precarious Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant early Monday. According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, one quake measuring magnitude 5.8 and another measuring 5.6 struck off the coast of Honsu—Japan's largest and most populated island—overnight. The agency says there is no immediate risk of a tsunami. However, the larger of the two quakes hit just 21 nautical miles from the Fukushima plant, where the containment of radioactive water and waste has been fraught with problems since an earthquake struck off the coast of the plant in 2011. Situated at the crux of sev...

NOVANEWS It's a risky experiment that could bring about unintended consequences, they warn. - Andrea Germanos A team from the IAEA looks at water storage tanks at Fukushima in Nov. 2013.(Photo: IAEA Imagebank)Nuclear experts are casting doubt on Japan's plans to build a giant underground "ice wall" surrounding the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility in a bid to stop dangerous radiation leaks. The roughly $320 million ice wall would theoretically function like an underground dam to stop groundwater from seeping into the facility where it becomes contaminated with radioactivity. One of those questioning the ice wall is Dale Klein, former U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman and current head of the Nuclear Reform Monitoring Committee hired by plant operator TEPCO. "I’m not ...

NOVANEWS 'This is not an appropriate way to deal with the desire of the public for transparency' - Jacob Chamberlain Nuclear regulators inspect Fukushima storage tanks (Reuters)On the same day that new measurements from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant show an unprecedented surge in one kind of radiation, new charges surfaced Thursday against TEPCO, the plant's owner, that it has been withholding vital data on a second radioactive substance. Five months ago, measurements taken by TEPCO showed surging levels of the highly radioactive strontium-90 at a groundwater well. However, despite requests from the country's Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) for all such data, TEPCO withheld that information until Wednesday. "We did not hear about this figure when they detected it last Septem...

NOVANEWS by Ralph Nader (Photo: AP)Last month, the ruling Japanese coalition parties quickly rammed through Parliament a state secrets law. We Americans better take notice. Under its provisions the government alone decides what are state secrets and any civil servants who divulge any “secrets” can be jailed for up to 10 years. Journalists caught in the web of this vaguely defined law can be jailed for up to 5 years. Government officials have been upset at the constant disclosures of their laxity by regulatory officials before and after the Fukushima nuclear power disaster in 2011, operated by Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO). "The Obama administration must become more alert to authoritarian trends in Japan that its policies have been either encouraging or knowingly ignoring – often...

NOVANEWS Following reelection of anti-base mayor, plan to move controversial military site to a new location faces set back - Jacob Chamberlain Anti-base protesters in Okinawa, Japan, April 25, 2010 (Kyodo News)Following decades of protest against the controversial U.S. military base in Okinawa, Japan, plans to move that base to a different location on the island faced new challenges Sundayafter the re-election of a mayor who has promised to block the move. Susumu Inamine, the mayor of Nago—where Japan plans on moving the base—ran on an anti-base campaign, defeating pro-base challenger Bunshin Suematsu, who was backed by prime minister Shinzo Abe's Liberal Democratic party (LDP). Inamine could stand in the way of a deal between Okinawa's governor Hirokazu Nakaima, a long-time criti...