Reactors
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UPDATE, Yesterday marked a milestone of sorts for the Fukushima Daiichi reactors: some six-and-a-half months after the onset of the accident, temperature levels at all of the reactors and fuel pools fell below the boiling point (100 degrees Celsius) for the first time since March 11.
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UPDATE, The New York Times reports that Japan is finally getting ready to acknowledge what we have been saying in this space for months: that the Fukushima evacuation zone is an uninhabitable Dead Zone, and no one will live there again for at least many decades. An official government announcement is expected later this week.
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Nuclear Power After Fukushima. Report and recommendations to improve safety & security at U.S. reactor sites, from Union of Concerned Scientists.
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UPDATE, Tepco reported today the highest radiation levels yet measured at Fukushima Daiichi—1,000 Rems/hour (10 Sieverts/hour)—a lethal dose. The measurements were taken at the base of the ventilation stack for Units 1 and 2 (the stack that did not work during the accident). The actual levels may have been more than measured, since the monitoring equipment could not measure more than 10 Sieverts/hour. Workers sent to the area to confirm the measurements, which were first picked up by a gamma measuring camera, received doses of about 400 millirems in just a few minutes.
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New report for Greenpeace finds that Areva’s EPR reactor design is vulnerable to a prolonged blackout such as occurred at Fukushima. Design assumes power would be restored within 24 hours; Fukushima’s blackout lasted 11 days. Copy of full report. Summary of report. CV of report author, Austrian nuclear expert Helmut Hirsch.
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UPDATE, Tuesday, It has now been more than four months since the accident began at Fukushima Daiichi and unfortunately no end is yet in sight. Much like last year’s BP oil spill, which spewed oil into the Gulf of Mexico for months yet vanished from the major media within weeks, so has much of the major media moved on from Fukushima. But the accident continues, radiation continues to be released (though much lower amounts, of course, than initially), and the risk of new problems remains.
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UPDATE, Tuesday, A new version of the map we posted Friday of radiation readings in Japan sheds more light on the vast contamination of the northern part of the country and new evidence that the government’s response has been woefully inadequate. The map is here. (Warning, this is a very large—15mb—pdf file; not recommended for slow connections).
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