EcocentricEnergy
If you’ve felt jumpy since Fukushima, you’re not alone. Even the tiniest burp from a nuclear power plant gets people fearing the worst, so it was scary news indeed when the San Onofre plant in San Diego County announced at 6:30 PM (PST) on Tuesday night that one of it’s reactors might have begun leaking radioactive steam. The alarm was …
“Today, we have reached a great milestone. The reactors are stable, which should resolve one big cause of concern for us all.”
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New tests show traces of radioactive elements in Japanese baby food, forcing the recall of more than 400,000 cans of infant formula. The news underscores the challenges still facing Japan’s food sector nine months after the …
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The tsunami that tore through northern Japan on March 11 was catastrophically strong. The waves—triggered by a 9.0 earthquake—swamped coastal towns, destroyed homes and offices and led to the deaths of nearly 16,000 people. …
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It’s now eight months since a devastating earthquake and tsunami hit northern Japan, badly damaging the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex. That accident eventually resulted in a meltdown, and the accident as a whole was rated a 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale’s 1 to 7 rating. Explosions in the plant threw large amounts of …
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The news has been relatively good recently out of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO), the plant’s operator, last week reported success in sharply reducing radiation levels within the plant, and in stabilizing temperatures in the pools of water need to store used nuclear fuel rods. While …
EcocentricWaste
Keizo Ishii grabs a dosimeter from a table and strides over to a lump of uprooted grass. It’s a blazing August day in Fukushima City. The professor of nuclear engineering, an with the aura of a mad scientist as sweat drips from his brow and gray hair wisps out from under his baseball cap, has come from Tohoku University in Sendai to …
EcocentricHealth
Call it slipper security. To get clearance into the food radiation testing center at Fukushima Agricultural Technology Center, you have to change shoes three times. The first time, you get a black pair. The second time, after your heels are scanned by a Geiger counter and deemed radiation-free, you change into a pair of plastic house …
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Another disgruntled Japanese official has taken to the interwebs to air his grievances about the inadequate attention being paid to the welfare of residents of Minamisoma, a town about 25 kilometers away from the stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant. Minamisoma last grabbed international headlines when the town’s mayor posted …
EcocentricRegulation
Over 950 pounds of beef contaminated with radioactive cesium above the legal limit has been distributed and eaten in at least eight prefectures across Japan, Tokyo city authorities have announced. The beef, which came from cows raised on a farm in Minamisoma in Fukushima prefecture, contained cesium at a level of 3,240 becquerels per …
