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About current news: If you read from physicsforums.com/showthread … 0&page=655 onward you will notice that one of the Japanese contributors has started to post frequent lists of links to articles in newspapers and on other news sites. I can only continue to highly recommend checking out that site (the ongoing thread on forensic analysis of the Fukushima accident) from time to time…
“German news says they just took the highest measurements since the quake.” (Ryan the Third, 2 August)
Where did they take those measurements? In Germany?
[quote=“coralia”]“German news says they just took the highest measurements since the quake.” (Ryan the Third, 2 August)
Where did they take those measurements? In Germany?[/quote]
At the plant in Japan
Well that’s a relief…
Sort of.
Someone sent me this rather scary article:
www.gaia-health.com/articles501/000517- … home.shtml
I don’t know anything about the website, but the article seems to be well informed and well written.
“Japan utility knew of tsunami threat: government”
mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/201 … 0000c.html
Still interesting information in the related Physicsforum thread:
physicsforums.com/showthread … 0&page=670 and onward
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[quote=“KanPi”]
I went to buy some Japanese rice today. All the brands I could find were from Niigata or… Fukushima prefecture. Interesting that I couldn’t find any from anywhere else. Getting a cheap deal lately on Fukushima goods, Taiwan ? Not cool.[/quote]
Products from that area and adjacent areas now often come with certificates stating that the goods are not contaminated with radioactivity, but all it really certifies is that whatever was checked for was below the level the government decided was OK (which is not “zero”). Domestic sales are suffering since too many people don’t trust this certification, so exporting rice from that area to where the word “Fukushima” is less known may seem a good option. 
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A Canadian friend mentioned in a recent mail message that they’ve been having high readings for radioactive dust in the rain at the westcoast (the dust having been carried there by the jetstream) and that thre are high readings for milk (not surprising). I’ll try to get some details, especially dates, concerning this information…
They say they’ve shut 'em down.
Yeah, they presume the reactors are in a shutdown state, because that is what they get according to their modeling (nobody, including TEPCO, has enough first-hand information to really know).
physicsforums.com/showthread … 0&page=740 and following
Of course, some things there are bound to improve with time in some way, but the current announcement has more PR value than any other value - concrete and steel of the remaining structures continue to disintegrate, there is still radioactive water leaking (escaping) and running into the sea, and large anmounts of so-called “cleaned” water (some radionuclids have been removed) will have to be released into the sea eventually (because tank capacity will run out) - the fishermen are opposed to that plan but will be overruled by the government when the time comes. Not to forget that there are still aftershocks happening in that region and that it is just a question of time before the next big eartquake hits and does more damage. But fortunately humans forget (repress) uncomfortable information rather quickly (it’s too hard facing reality)…
The ocean, and with that the biosphere, will eventually get not only the garbage from this broken plant but much more garbage from many other plants, plus the garbage from a number of sunken nuclear ships that are quietly rusting away. So some “good news” (PR) is extremely important for government and industry - they know that people will believe, forget, and continue to ignore the for laypeople hard-to-understand physics behind nuclear power.
(We are all talking about the “post-quake” situation, but the reality for Japan and Taiwan is that we also live in a “pre-quake” situation - here is a related question:
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=105764 )
Interesting things going on at the accident site in Fukushima:
physicsforums.com/showthread … 0&page=762
And some unsurprising reading:
japantimes.co.jp/text/nn2012 … ticle_life
and
japantimes.co.jp/text/fl2012 … japantimes
Since last week, the news have been building up a frenzy as how -allegedly- the scientists in Japan have -apparently- discovered “action” in a deep fault which will create a quake of around 8 magnitude and a tsunami of who knows what altitude… Normally would dismiss but this is going on and on and on. Anything in concrete regarding this rumor? Seemed more like a hoax but yesterday the news were stating intensive inspections and quake preparations are being taken all over Tokio.
Mind you, I’d be delighted if we finally had a quake predictive system, but unles This Is It, well, color me skeptic.
edit:
stuff like this: tw.news.yahoo.com/%E6%97%A5%E6%9 … 00497.html
[quote=“Icon”]Since last week, the news have been building up a frenzy as how -allegedly- the scientists in Japan have -apparently- discovered “action” in a deep fault which will create a quake of around 8 magnitude and a tsunami of who knows what altitude… Normally would dismiss but this is going on and on and on. Anything in concrete regarding this rumor? Seemed more like a hoax but yesterday the news were stating intensive inspections and quake preparations are being taken all over Tokio.
Mind you, I’d be delighted if we finally had a quake predictive system, but unles This Is It, well, color me skeptic.
edit:
stuff like this: tw.news.yahoo.com/%E6%97%A5%E6%9 … 00497.html[/quote]
I wouldn’t take it too seriously, it doesn’t sound like anything new. Everybody already knows that there is significant earthquake hazard around Tokyo, and that it’s going to get hit eventually. Just like everyone knows that LA and San Francisco are in for it someday. These kinds of predictions are based on historical activity (how long since the last big one), current activity, and modeling, but they are still largely statistical guesses. Nobody should be surprised if Tokyo gets hit by a big quake, but that doesn’t mean that it’ll necessarily happen in 4 years or 10 years, or even 20 years. If it takes some kind of announcement like this before the government starts worrying about earthquake preparedness, then quite frankly, they’re idiots. They should have been worrying about it already.
The relevant thread in the physicsforum is still a good comprehensive source of information:
The various reports and denials concerning the ongoing release of radioactive water into the ocean had one of the foreign reporters in Japan write a piece (published on August 31) that says it succinctly: in Japan it is still business as usual.
japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/0 … on-and-on/
And ocean currents will see to it that whatever radioactive crap is going into the ocean in Fukushima is going to be brought back to our region (Taiwan and Okinawa included) within a few years. 
Oh, and not to forget those little mistakes - like using a device to measure something that is much bigger than what the device can handle:
bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23918882
Funny how this is not the first time this has been happening there…
[quote=“yuli”]The various reports and denials concerning the ongoing release of radioactive water into the ocean had one of the foreign reporters in Japan write a piece (published on August 31) that says it succinctly: in Japan it is still business as usual.
japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/0 … on-and-on/
And ocean currents will see to it that whatever radioactive crap is going into the ocean in Fukushima is going to be brought back to our region (Taiwan and Okinawa included) within a few years.
Oh, and not to forget those little mistakes - like using a device to measure something that is much bigger than what the device can handle:
bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23918882
Funny how this is not the first time this has been happening there…[/quote]
I was wondering when this thread was going to resurface. I’ve been following the news over the last couple of weeks about all the leaks, incompetence and chaos going on there. Man oh man what a shocking clusterfuck TEPCO has going on at Fukushima Daiichi. However, this morning, I read that the Japanese government is finally talking about directly supervising the cleanup by establishing a Decommissioning Authority, similar to the one the UK has. If this means the Abe govt. is exiting “Denial Mode” about the disaster they have looming up the coast from Tokyo, then thank God!
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/02/us-japan-fukushima-idUSBRE98002520130902
Here is an interesting summary and analysis, based on Japanese souces:
japanfocus.org/-Jeff-Kingston/3986
This is what it boils down to for us in Japan: democracy and safety be damned, both the US government and our own government, in concert with big industry, will ensure that nuclear power plants will be used as before - this supports my prediction (made perhaps 2 years ago) that the earliest time Japan might phase out nuclear power would be after the next accident (given the stellar safety and honesty track record of our industrial and political establishment, the geological fault lines criss-crossing our country, and the wisdom of Murphy, this “next accident” is not a matter of IF? but of WHEN?). Of course, nuclear pollution emanating from a source in Japan has this funny habit of not staying in the country, so the rest of the world will enjoy the benefits of this “business as usual” approach, too.
:ohreally: :loco: :bluemad: :fume:
Or, if your level of cyniscism is sufficiently high:
:bravo: :discodance: :roflmao: