Teaching English in my sleep -- to the Korean occupation forces

I dreamed that Korea invaded. They just sort of massed in the hills and mountains overlooking the city (the dream place looked a little like Kyoto) and then filed in. The young soldiers were polite and seemed a little sheepish, so you almost felt a little sorry for them. Since the occupation was non-violent, there was no violent resistance, either, but there were some arguments along the lines of "Hey! Whaddaya think you're doing? This is stupid!" Young women were deployed too as soldier/spokespersons for the occupiers. For some reason they had decided to use English rather than Korean or Japanese as the occupation language. I became busy talking with the Korean spokeswomen over how the meaning of various edicts changed when there was no article as opposed to the definite or indefinite article.

Human Radiometer Birdhairjp

Birdhairjp visits the three cities of Koriyama, Nihonmatsu, and Fukushima to conduct radiation measurements at elementary schools and public parks 55 to 60 km from Fukushima Dai-Ichi as the cherry blossom front moves through. Past measurements have been made in many places, including Namie (65μSv/h), Kashiwa (9μSv/h) and Tokyo (2.35μSv/h at Minami-Katsushika H.S.).

The results at ground level are horrible. Although these may be hot spots, they are in public areas. The results at chest height (1.4, 0.81, 0.56μSv/h) are not terribly good either.

Citizen Radiation Monitor

http://www.youtube.com/user/Birdhairjp

Welcome back after over a month of silence. It looks like he is in Fukushima.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGUG7cIyx30

I should embed the English version.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4NjlEgGzgM

Down here in Kashiwa, Chiba, before his recent Fukushima videos.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di-_AaEBx2M

Nuclear Titanics

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/04/16/nuclear-titanics/

▶ April 16, 2012
The Perils of Technological Hubris
Nuclear Titanics
by KARL GROSSMAN

On the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, The Japan Times yesterday ran an editorial titled “The Titanic and the Nuclear Fiasco” which stated: “Presenting technology as completely safe, trustworthy or miraculous may seem to be a thing of the past, but the parallels between the Titanic and Japan’s nuclear power industry could not be clearer.”

“Japan’s nuclear power plants were, like the Titanic, advertised as marvels of modern science that were completely safe. Certain technologies, whether they promise to float a luxury liner or provide clean energy, can never be made entirely safe,” it said.

It quoted from a piece by Joseph Conrad written after the Titanic sank in which he noted the “chastening influence it should have on the self-confidence of mankind.” The Japan Times urged: “That lesson should be applied to all ‘unsinkable’ undertakings that might profit a few by imperiling the majority of others.”

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/ed20120415a1.html

Read the whole article. 

11,000 fuel rods, 85×Chernobyl at Fukushima Dai-Ichi site

Sometimes i worry.
A potential 85 × Chernobyls worth of radioactivity on-site in 11,000 spent fuel rods, parts of the site already too radioactive for humans or robots to approach, spent fuel pools suspended 30 meters in the air requiring constant cooling, structurally unsound. Only one spent fuel pool or reactor needs to go kablooey to make the site uninhabitable, at which point we can only retreat and try to deal with it from afar, perhaps with fly-overs like in Chernobyl. Even their best-case scenarios call for developing technology to try to clean up the site in 40 years or so, more likely not in centuries.

http://akiomatsumura.com/2012/04/682.html ⇒
☢

Japan’s former Ambassador to Switzerland, Mr. Mitsuhei Murata, was invited to speak at the Public Hearing of the Budgetary Committee of the House of Councilors on March 22, 2012, on the Fukushima nuclear power plants accident. Before the Committee, Ambassador Murata strongly stated that if the crippled building of reactor unit 4—with 1,535 fuel rods in the spent fuel pool 100 feet (30 meters) above the ground—collapses, not only will it cause a shutdown of all six reactors but will also affect the common spent fuel pool containing 6,375 fuel rods, located some 50 meters from reactor 4. In both cases the radioactive rods are not protected by a containment vessel; dangerously, they are open to the air. This would certainly cause a global catastrophe like we have never before experienced. He stressed that the responsibility of Japan to the rest of the world is immeasurable. Such a catastrophe would affect us all for centuries. Ambassador Murata informed us that the total numbers of the spent fuel rods at the Fukushima Daiichi site excluding the rods in the pressure vessel is 11,421 (396+615+566+1,535+994+940+6375).

I asked top spent-fuel pools expert Mr. Robert Alvarez, former Senior Policy Adviser to the Secretary and Deputy Assistant Secretary for National Security and the Environment at the U.S. Department of Energy, for an explanation of the potential impact of the 11,421 rods.

I received an astounding response from Mr. Alvarez [updated 4/5/12]:
"In recent times, more information about the spent fuel situation at the Fukushima-Dai-Ichi site has become known. It is my understanding that of the 1,532 spent fuel assemblies in reactor No. 304 assemblies are fresh and unirradiated. This then leaves 1,231 irradiated spent fuel rods in pool No. 4, which contain roughly 37 million curies (~1.4E+18 Becquerel) of long-lived radioactivity. The No. 4 pool is about 100 feet above ground, is structurally damaged and is exposed to the open elements. If an earthquake or other event were to cause this pool to drain this could result in a catastrophic radiological fire involving nearly 10 times the amount of Cs-137 released by the Chernobyl accident.
The infrastructure to safely remove this material was destroyed as it was at the other three reactors. Spent reactor fuel cannot be simply lifted into the air by a crane as if it were routine cargo. In order to prevent severe radiation exposures, fires and possible explosions, it must be transferred at all times in water and heavily shielded structures into dry casks.. As this has never been done before, the removal of the spent fuel from the pools at the damaged Fukushima-Dai-Ichi reactors will require a major and time-consuming re-construction effort and will be charting in unknown waters. Despite the enormous destruction cased at the Da–Ichi site, dry casks holding a smaller amount of spent fuel appear to be unscathed."

Based on U.S. Energy Department data, assuming a total of 11,138 spent fuel assemblies are being stored at the Dai-Ichi site, nearly all, which is in pools. They contain roughly 336 million curies (~1.2 E+19 Bq) of long-lived radioactivity. About 134 million curies is Cesium-137 — roughly 85 times the amount of Cs-137 released at the Chernobyl accident as estimated by the U.S. National Council on Radiation Protection (NCRP). The total spent reactor fuel inventory at the Fukushima-Daichi site contains nearly half of the total amount of Cs-137 estimated by the NCRP to have been released by all atmospheric nuclear weapons testing, Chernobyl, and world-wide reprocessing plants (~270 million curies or ~9.9 E+18 Becquerel).

It is important for the public to understand that reactors that have been operating for decades, such as those at the Fukushima-Dai-Ichi site have generated some of the largest concentrations of radioactivity on the planet. "

Many of our readers might find it difficult to appreciate the actual meaning of the figure, yet we can grasp what 85 times more Cesium-137 than the Chernobyl would mean. It would destroy the world environment and our civilization. This is not rocket science, nor does it connect to the pugilistic debate over nuclear power plants. This is an issue of human survival.

Arnie Gundersen in Tokyo

Tokyo Soil Samples Would Be Considered Nuclear Waste In The US from Fairewinds Energy Education on Vimeo.
I have no real complaints but I think the sample sites he chose were exactly where we expect fallout to concentrate (cracks in the sidewalk, roofs, etc).

I'm not lichen it so rad

http://kiikochan.blog136.fc2.com/blog-entry-1556.html
A blogger's summary of a TV report (Feb 24, 2012): Black lichens of 1,000,000 becqerel/kg. They have these at Chernobyl, too. It seems to get energy from radiation.
If you google the term 黒い物質 (black substance) it tends to come up. 

The Naoto Matsumura Experience (Take a walk on the wild side)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOvLIf39xO0

I respect his decision to live free, but i think his call to decontaminate such a large area is hopeless and wasted effort. Time will deal with it. People should leave. Farmers should be compensated with new farms elsewhere, as the population is falling and the countryside is being abandoned. Then they can farm without compromised produce or stigma. (As it is now, the government buys contaminated rice grown anywhere outside the prohibited zone and charges TEPCO, so all consumers pay the cost of continued attempts to farm in Fukushima prefecture.) Contaminated soil should be covered with less contaminated soil brought in from elsewhere. Cover 120μSv/hr soil with 37μSv/hr soil brought in from less contaminated areas, and so on. 

Hamaoka, the world's most dangerous nuclear power plant

https://ssl.panoramio.com/photo/45405527 I cycled near it once on this Pacific Tokai Cycling Road (but that's not my picture).

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2012/0310/Japan-s-Hamaoka-nuclear-plant-sees-tsunami-defense-in-very-big-wall This article from a few weeks ago has been superceded by new estimates of a magnitude 9 quake and a 30-meter wave. Hopefully it will never reopen.

Japan's controversial Hamaoka nuclear plant, shut down after Fukushima, wants to reopen once a 54-ft.-high, mile-long wall is finished. But the plant also sits on a seismic fault line, raising more than a few doubts.

 WSJ, 2011 http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2011/05/06/hamaoka-japans-most-infamous-nuclear-plant/

Since a tsunami wrecked the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant a year ago, leading to meltdown in three of its reactors, all eyes in Japan have been on the Hamaoka plant, 300 miles down the coast and similarly located right on the seashore. It has been branded the most dangerous nuclear power station in the world by some seismologists.

Its operator, Chubu Electric, is determined to reopen the plant as soon as its workers have finished building a six-ft.-thick anti-tsunami wall that will stand 54 feet above sea level and stretch a mile; the manmade hills now being constructed are a first step in the yearlong project.

But many local residents are not so sure.

“I was always a little worried before last March,” says Fumio Takahashi, a real estate agent who lives in the town of Omaezaki, hard by the Hamaoka plant. “Now I realize that it is dangerous to have a nuclear plant near your home. I absolutely do not want it to reopen.”

Hamaoka is particularly dangerous, explains Yoshika Shiratori, because it is built on a seismic fault line where Japanese government experts have estimated that there is an 87 percent chance of a magnitude 8 earthquake within the next 30 years.

Triple Disaster × 7

 Video isn't very good at capturing an earthquake, but in some cases you get an expressive imprint.

70th floor of the Landmark Tower in Yokohama. Hundreds of miles from the epicenter, but still...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n--60WNpKXU
3.11に横浜ランドマーク展望レストラン

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26cDWmeSH-s
Miyagi. Since I was underground⇒outside I sometimes wonder what people inside felt. This building makes a surflike sound as it accelerates and you hear the crowd responding to the rollercoaster sensations (2-3g in some places).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8W3AqfOlwk
It's never a good idea to head down to the river to watch the tsunami come in, but our videographer seems to get just enough time to react to each escalation (with accompanying nonverbal grunts) and ends up OK atop maybe some playground equipment (?) at Minami Kessennuma Elementary School.
津波を見に行ったら流されそうになったので近くの学校へ退避

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIR7MvPjY9s
Going back home to the seaside in Namie where she was born and raised, 5K from the plant, 7 months after.
【東日本震災から7ヵ月】福島県浪江町の海岸沿い＊私の生まれ育った海
震災7ヵ月後の福島県浪江町請戸地区。福島県第一原発からおよそ5キロ地点です。

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cv5c66osXY
Cows inside the 20K perimeter in October '11.
福島第一原発から２０ｋｍ圏内の牛達が道路を闊歩 2011/10/2
一時帰宅した時に撮影した野良と化した牛達です。

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPnVglzxg8g
He finds the hottest spot at his house in Fukushima City is the rainwater drain at 14.5μSv/h (alarm goes off above 10μSv/h) and he wonders if that will be OK when it only falls to half that after 30 years...
放射線量測定器のアラームが鳴り止まない～　福島市渡利
撮影2011年6月8日　 福島市渡利の自宅庭の雨水の溜まり場所では、最高放射線量が14.5μSv/hに達し、放射線量測定器の10μSv/hオーバーを注意

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mu69Q0suq0Y
Asphalt is bad but moss is worse -- in Namie.
放射能汚染浪江町津島
原発利権屋が許せないですね。山奥の農民に何の罪があるのでしょうか？

SCRAP: ᚠμ©× TEPCO +

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YI718wgTIFI
ᚠμ©× TEPCO
by SCRAP
to the tune (?) of Rockaway Beach (Ramones)



Song set to SCRAP musician Nobu's pics of his abandoned hometown of Namie, including what looks like suiting up and going back in to extract belongings from his apartment. 

TOP LANDING : TAITO : トップランディング

nostalgia circa 1989

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUplJv5Mgzc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_YqnZAQ8nE

How near is here?

How Tohoku, Kanto, Hokkaido, TEPCO, Kansai, Okinawa, other countries, and politicians see the spread of contamination. This is very accurate. Origin unknown.

"Grass-eaters"

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20111126b2.html
The remarkable decline of dating in the "herbivore" age:

 Sexes set record in dating disinterest | The Japan Times Online

A record-high 61.4 percent of unmarried Japanese males aged between 18 and 34 have no girlfriend, up 9.2 percentage points from 2005, a June 2010 survey by a research body showed Friday.

Home radiometry results

 after testing house for radiation October 16

Our house and garden seems to be around 0.11-0.14 microsieverts/hr, according to my friend's dosimeter. It's lower as you go up closer to the roof and eaves, not higher as with some houses. Inside is not much different than outside. We tested the sandbox in the park and at the daycare next door, and it was about the same.

He has found 0.2, 0.3, and 0.4 in Chiba. In one case a house in Matsudo had those numbers for the first, second floor, and eaves, respectively. There is a spot along the river in Noda-shi where he measures 0.4. The hot spot in Andersen Park was 0.5 microsieverts/hr. Reality is about 3 times the silly numbers the gov't reports as seen at http://www.japantimes.co.jp/radiation-levels.html

I don't really need to strip all organic material and topsoil from the garden, because it is not any more or less radioactive than the surrounding area, and it would eventually become the same anyway. And if i did collect radioactivity in my rain catchment system, it was probably radioactive iodine, which would have decayed by now. Hot spots which exist in Chiba are about 6 miles or 10k north of here.

"Contaminated Zone" in Chiba

Radiation spread reaches Chiba, Saitama prefectures - AJW by The Asahi Shimbun

» In Chiba Prefecture, the highest levels of cesium-137, between 30,000 and 60,000 becquerels per square meter, were detected in northern areas, such as Kashiwa, Matsudo, Abiko and Nagareyama. Cesium-137 has a half-life of 30 years.
In the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident, areas with 37,000 becquerels or more of radioactivity per square meter were designated contaminated zones, while levels of 555,000 becquerels or more required forcible relocation.
In Chiba and Saitama prefectures, the highest radiation levels were 0.2 to 0.5 microsievert per hour. In most other areas, the radiation levels were 0.1 microsievert or less.

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ2011093012746

Sandbox ban, go.jp document hunt, & To-Dai Prof Tatsuhiko KODAMA

Schools in Tokyo ban use of playground sandboxes over radiation fears - The Mainichi Daily News
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/news/20110830p2a00m0na015000c.html
When sandboxes are banned, only criminals will play in sandboxes.

http://www.s.affrc.go.jp/docs/press/pdf/110830-06.pdf
=Aug30 radiation map from MAFF.

http://radioactivity.mext.go.jp/ja/distribution_map_around_FukushimaNPP/0002/11555_0830.pdf
one from MEXT -- see pp 10, 11, 14, 15

http://www.s.affrc.go.jp/docs/press/pdf/110830-06.pdf



Part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dlf4gOvzxYc
Click on "cc" button to show English subtitles.


Part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDlEOmcALwQ
Professor Tatsuhiko Kodama is the head of the Radioisotope Center at the University of Tokyo. On July 27, he appeared as a witness to give testimony to the Committee on Welfare and Labor in Japan's Lower House in the Diet. (At the end, Prof. Kodama was able to elaborate only three of his "four requests" probably due to the time constraint.)

A houl in dha baatam av dha sii (kraekt)

Cracked Sea Floor

Komatsu Sakyo (Japan Sinks)

Death of a sci-fi pioneer | The Japan Times Online
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/ed20110814a1.html
On July 26, Komatsu Sakyo, a pioneer in Japanese science fiction, died at the age of 80. Born in Osaka in 1931, he witnessed firsthand the devastation of World War II. After graduating from Kyoto University with a degree in Italian literature ...
By chance, the announcement in the book by an American geodesic group of a massive shift in the earth's crust centered on the Japanese archipelago takes place on March 11, with Mount Fuji erupting the next day.

Too hot to burn

Fire festival bans radioactive wood
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110813002954.htm
The Kyoto municipal government has announced that firewood from disaster-hit Rikuzen-Takata, Iwate Prefecture, will not be used in an annual bonfire festival in Kyoto, due to the detection of radioactive cesium in its bark. Rikuzen-Takata is located about 200 km north of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.