Secrecy law approved in Japan — Fear Fukushima cover-ups to worsen- approved by US

Japan Parliament and prime minister Shinzo Abe. Photographer: Haruyoshi Yamaguchi/Bloomberg

Japan’s more powerful lower house of Parliament approved a state secrecy bill late Tuesday [...] 
Critics say it might sway authorities to withhold more information about nuclear power plants [...] 
The move is welcomed by the United States [...] 
lawyer Hiroyasu Maki said the bill’s definition of secrets is so vague and broad that it could easily be expanded to include radiation data [...] 
Journalists who obtain information “inappropriately” or “wrongfully” can get up to five years in prison.

Taro Yamamoto [an upper house lawmaker] said the law threatened to recreate a fascist state in Japan. 
“This secrecy law represents a coup d’etat by a particular group of politicians and bureaucrats,” he told a press conference in Tokyo. 
“I believe the secrecy bill will eventually lead to the repression of the average person. 
It will allow those in power to crack down on anyone who is criticising them – the path we are on is the recreation of a fascist state.” 
He said the withholding of radiation data after the Fukushima disaster showed the Japanese government was predisposed to hiding information from its citizens and this law would only make things worse. [...] 
The Asahi Shimbun newspaper likened the law to “conspiracy” regulations in pre-war Japan and said it could be used to stymie access to facts on nuclear accidents.




READ MORE >> ENENEWS

Radioactivity level spikes 6,500 times at Fukushima well (VIDEO)

The Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan is struggling with high radioactivity levels spikes and leakages. There is an ongoing crisis, which is threatening our whole world, and with no known solution.


                      

Robert Jacobs, a professor at Hiroshima Peace University, told RT the compounding problems at Fukushima Daiichi underscore one critical reality: no one really knows what to do.

 “Nobody really knows how to solve the problems at Fukushima. There is nobody who has solutions. The problems at Fukushima are unprecedented, so even bringing in outside expertise, all that they can try to do is problem solve. There is no solution that other countries have that they can come in and fix the reactors, or rather, shut down the contamination, shut down the leaks.”

Nuclear power expert Arnold Gundersen told RT:

“They have a thousand tanks that are held together with a plastic pipe, so if there is a moderate earthquake the plastic pipes will fail and all that material will run across the ground surface and into the ocean,” .

He added that the health risks are great and continue to increase every year. “Somewhere between 100,000 to 1,000,000 [people] will over the next thirty years get cancer from this accident…1,000 additional cancers a year from eating fish from the Pacific.”

See FAIREWINDS >>> Radioactivity level spikes 6,500 times at Fukushima well

Exposing Fukushima cover-up

The world has been in a collective chock after the nuclear accidents in Fukushima.  That is now beginning to lift, thank God. Main purpose, not only for the Japanese government, but also for the world politicians, has been and still are, not to create panic. In stead they should work with this as the international catastrophe it is.                         

 

                                                                                   

Enenews about how media now exposing Fukushima cover-up:  Problems much worse than officials claim

BBC News, Aug 22, 2013: The “worsening situation” at Fukushima has prompted a former Japanese ambassador to Switzerland to call for the withdrawal of Tokyo’s Olympic bid. In a letter to the UN secretary general, Mitsuhei Murata says the official radiation figures published by Tepco cannot be trusted. He says he is extremely worried about the lack of a sense of crisis in Japan and abroad.

Time, Aug 22, 2013: “It’s time we faced the danger, ” said Takashi Hirose, a writer shocked by the under-reported radiation levels he found on recent trip into the evacuation zone. “So many terrible things are not being reported in the news.”
BBC News, Aug 22, 2013: Fukushima leak is ‘much worse than we were led to believe’ [...] A nuclear expert [Mycle Schneider] has told the BBC that he believes the current water leaks at Fukushima are much worse than the authorities have stated. [...] He says water is leaking out all over the site and there are no accurate figures for radiation levels. [...] some nuclear experts are concerned that the problem is a good deal worse than either Tepco or the Japanese government are willing to admit.

Irish Times, Aug 21, 2013: Cover-up [....] Many experts believe Japan’s government continues to underestimate the cost and complexity of the decommissioning, and that Tepco has been systematically covering up problems.

Bloomberg, Aug 21, 2013: At least one commissioner at the regulator questioned the accuracy of data being released by operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (9501) and whether the incident had been fully reported. […] “This INES evaluation is based on the 300-ton leak, but I really wonder if we can trust data provided by Tepco,” Toyoshi Fuketa, a commissioner at the NRA, said at a meeting in Tokyo today. “I really wonder if we should judge based on Tepco’s data.”


SEE ALSO  
>>>   "You Don't Fight a War on a Budget"

>>>   "Fukushima 2 years after: What did They Knew and When" / "Fukushima 2 år efter: Vad visste de och när"
 (Both in Swedish and English) 

Japan Earth quake also Triggered Waves in Norway

The Aurland-Flåm fjord in Norway, where the 2011 Japan earthquake triggered seiche waves. Leif Hauge.

In fjords pointed northeast, the S-waves from the Japan earthquake moved the ground back and forth by 0.4 inches (1 centimeter), Bondevik, a tsunami expert, said.
"You can move a lot of water just by pushing one centimeter of ground".
The waves measured nearly 5 feet (1.5 meters) from trough to crest (their lowest to highest point). No damage was reported, however. "Luckily, they happened at low tide".

Bondevik was called on by local media to explain the source of the surge. Bondevik said he first thought an underwater landslide generated the waves. "They looked like tsunamis," he said. But as the day wore on, more reports of coastal flooding came in from faraway fjords, blowing a hole in his landslide theory.
"Later in the evening I realized there must be a connection with the big earthquake in Japan," Bondevik told LiveScience. "I was so excited I couldn't sleep that night thinking about it."

"Norway's weird waves traced to Japan quake" , Becky Oskin, LiveScience

Fukushima: A Global Catastrophe

A

Picture of unit 4 from late 2011, presented by Simplyinfo

After two and a half years now many are finally saying out aloud what a few have said all along: This is a global catastrophe.  After Japan, it's the West Coast of US that takes the first hit. But whole the Northern hemisphere is threatened.

READ MORE: 
As In the Days of Noah: "Fukushima: A Global Catastrophe"

Fukushima: Is the "China Syndrome" Happening? (VIDEO)

People who have followed the catastrophe in Fukushima, know that it has been radioactive leaks to the Pacific all the time. Japan has just not wanted to admit that.
When they now do admit it, we may assume the situation is getting worse.




Thom Hartmann talks with Kevin Kamps, Radioactive Waste Watchdog - Beyong Nuclear, www.beyondnuclear.com, about the dangerous situation at Japan's Fukushima Nuclear plant.

Thom Hartmann, Host: So what’s the fate and future Fukushima first of all?

Kevin Kamps, Beyond Nuclear: [...] In the context of what’s going on now with the groundwater flooding of the site — because one of their mitigation measures which is pretty not very well thought out, was building a seawall by freezing the ground — and guess what? The groundwater is piling up behind the seawall. [...] by backing up the water under the entire site, they are turning the ground into quicksand. And that’s causing less stability — more instability. There are structural engineers and nuclear engineers warning that may be the final straw that’s needed to topple not only Unit 4, but perhaps some of those other destroyed units with their high-level radioactive waste stored in pools fifty feet up in the air.[…] If that [Unit 4] pool goes down — enough of that fuel is still in there — it’ll be on fire [...]



Hartmann: And the prevailing winds and the prevailing ocean currents take water from the coast of Japan where?

Kamps: To North America. Within days of the Fukushima Daiichi catastrophe beginning, we were getting fallout coming down in rain in the United States — not in insignificant quantities. And also, of course, the seafood. Not only does the ocean’s currents bring the radioactivity this way, but also the sea life itself. The blue fin tuna migrated from Japan to North America and carried the radioactive cesium in its flesh over here.

YOU DON’T FIGHT A WAR ON A BUDGET

"The Japanese should fight this as a war,

and you don’t fight a war on a budget"

Arnie Gundersen’s new video update is a discussion with Akio Matsumura on today’s biggest dangers at Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Fukushima, July 2013 

40 good years and 1 bad day..

Akio Matsumura says the accident has raised enormous issues that the world has never experienced. Tepco cannot handle this magnitude of a catastrophe alone. He has worked to make the government listen to make independent international team to go in and try solve the huge problems at Fukushima Daichii, and minimize the radiation to the Japanese people.

It does not exist today an independent organization. IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) claim to be that, but is also promoting nuclear power (article 2 in their charter), and that cannot be independent..

Nuclear power is big business, and today, money goes before human heath and lives.

We must continue to study and bring wisdom of international team together. Please help Japan – and the world.

The biggest dangers at the NPP (nucear power plant) today are:

1    1. An earthquake that causes the water tanks to leak.

Enormously radioactive water is stored in 700 huge tanks. They don’t let us know exactly what is in them. The decay of the radioactive material in those tanks releasing very high quantities of x rays off site.

If there is an earthquake, none of them  are seismically qualified.

Release of this into the pacific Ocean is more than what has already been released.

    

    2. The structural condition of nr 4.

Reactor 4 has most fuel, and hottest fuel. Loss of fuel cooling, can still lead to a fuel pool fire. This will contaminate a huge part of the country, including Tokyo. 

In my opinion that means evacuation of over 30 million people. Nothing is prepared to meet this treat, because it is looked upon as impossible.

I don’t think we are allowed to think like this.

In the Book of Exodus in the Bible,  the Israeli people was able to escape from Egypt with 2-3 mill people and loads of animals. On foot. With the transport technology we have today, we should be able to help more people out of Japan than escaped from Egypt..

Japan is a huge island. It should be surrounded by big cargo ships until this treat is under control.

But a price tag is set on human lives that the world leaders are not willing to pay.

It’s a question of economy. Neither Tepco (Tokyo Electric Company, running the plant) or the Japanese government want the Japanese people to know how much in debt this catastrophe has sat them.

The word leaders do not want people to know how dangerous this situation specifically, and nuclear power plants in general, are for the world. Even a knowledge of possible ruin and extinction of the planet is not enough to make them give up one single dollar in profit..

3     3. Unit 3

This unit has less fuel, but are much more damaged than unit 4. Therefore it has even less chance to withstand an earthquake.

A quake of 7.0 or higher at or near the site, is what we all pray will not occur in this area.

Japan is situated on several cracks in the earth’s crust, upon several tectonic plates.

Two big problems

Ground water is leaking into the reactors.

The devastating earth quake 11^th of March 2011 made the entire Pacific side of Japan drop with 3 feet.. Japan sank down with 3 feet..

If you’re a building and the structure suddenly fall 3 feet, that makes the floor to crack. It puts more water pressure on the bottom of the building.

So water is flowing into the reactor buildings in great quantities, 400 TONS A DAY..

If the buildings had no radiation, it would be no problem, the water could flood anywhere.

But this water gets highly radioactive, and is contaminating ground water and ocean. There is no way they can contain all this water..

I remember how they tried.. This was the reason why the Tepco leader cry on TV..  He apologized for radioactive water leaking out in the sea..

The containment got holes in it, penetrations, where wires are going in and out, electric, and pipes.

The insulation on these penetrations was never designed for high radiation, high temperature – and salt water – no one ever THOUGHT they would be exposed to salt water. (salt breaks down structure).

All three things happened at Fukushima Daichii, and the penetrations have all failed.

 So the radioactivity that was supposed to be contained in the nuclear reactor, is now leaking through these penetrations, to where the water is leaking into the other buildings.

In that effect we have small pieces of nuclear fuel, powder, mixing in with the water and cover the floors in the reactor buildings.

You have two choices:

Either stop the water from going in, or stop the radiation from going out.

Both very difficult.

Nothing of this have ever been done before, nothing is described in any text book..

Stop the water from going in:

Gundersen proposed after the accident to build a trench around the site, and filing it with something called ciolite ( a volcanic material who absorbs radiation very well)

Another scientist, Japanese Dr Nakamura, suggested building wells outside that trench, to drop the water table. That would reduce the amount of water going into the reactor buildings.

If you could drop that water table, you could pump the water out in the ocean. The ceolite would filter the radiation and make the water clean.

Stop the radiation from going out:

The horse is already out of the barn..

But it’s still important to seal all those penetrations that are leaking – find the leaks and plug them.

Extremely high and deadly, or near deadly radiation makes this difficult..

There’s a priority to get the fuel out of those reactors.. but that high radiation makes it extraordinary difficult.

Best solution concerning the 400 tons of water going in every day, is to lower the ground water table and prevent further water to go in.

From the earliest days we knew..  that the biggest concern is that any accident at Fukushima Daichii that will cause high and lethal releases of radioactivity, will make further work on the plant impossible. It will be abandoned, and  maybe even also on the nearby plant, Fukushima Danii. This will have an impact on the whole world, especially on the northern hemisphere.

You can see Arnie Gundersen's new update video on Fukushima: 
"Forty Good Years and One Bad Day"   >>> HERE. 

All pictures in this article is from Arnie Gundersen's update video.
Get more information at Arnie Gundersen's excellent web site:
Fairewinds Energy Education


See also: "Fukushima: Unstable and a strategic disaster"