Friday, December 9, 2011
West Coast USA Be Prepared: An Emergency Happened In Fukushima on 12/7/11
Some sort of Emergency occurred in Fukushima on 12/7/11. The next day, on 12/8/11, TEPCO announced that the emergency was just training. We find it strange that TEPCO did not announce the NIGHT TIME emergency training BEFORE IT OCCURRED.
Moreover, one has to question the wisdom of believing a company would have their already limited workforce stumbling around at NIGHT in the midst of at least THREE NUCLEAR MELTDOWNS for TRAINING.
If you live on the west coast of the USA you have at minimum one day to prepare if that 'night time emergency security measures training" involved the airborne release of something other than training mist.
If you have a Geiger counter, now and for the next several days would be a good time for some intensive monitoring.
Here is a link to TEPCO's PDF after the fact press release on the Emergency Security Measures “Nighttime Training” Conducted on Dec. 7
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Top nuke regulators tell White House of ‘grave concerns’ with NRC chairman
ReplyDeleteBy Andrew Restuccia and Ben Geman - 12/09/11 07:58 PM ET
Members of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have told the White House that NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko is causing “serious damage” to the agency that could harm the body’s ability to protect health and safety.
An Oct. 13 letter from Jaczko’s four NRC colleagues to White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley is a powerful, unified rebuke of the agency’s leader by his fellow commissioners, who cite “grave concerns” about his conduct and allege it’s increasingly “erratic.”
“We believe that his actions and behavior are causing serious damage to this institution and are creating a chilled work environment at the NRC,” states the letter to Daley from NRC commissioners Kristine L. Svinicki, George Apostolakis, William D. Magwood, IV, and William C. Ostendorff.
“We are concerned that this will adversely affect the NRC’s central mission to protect the health, safety and security of the American people,” the letter adds...
BTW, in the path of the jet stream, it takes anywhere from 7 to 10 days for the fallout from Fukushima to reach the West Coast. Could be at the low end of those days to reach Alaska or BC. Could be earlier for Hawaii if the jet stream leaves it's normal path and bends down South in the Mid-Pacific, but usually that does not happen and Hawaii actually gets the wrap around fallout after the West Coast.
ReplyDeleteJust looked closely at the jet stream from the 6th on. Whatever fallout there was from the 7th is hitting the Aleutian Islands right now. Will be hitting lower Alaska and BC on or before the 12th, and the Pacific Northwest states the 12th - 14th. Best guess.
ReplyDeleteThe very first fallout in Europe hit 7 days after Fukushima; that is the basis for our 3day to the west coast minimum.
ReplyDeleteI would venture that that 7 days from Fukushima to Europe is a small portion of the fallout going over the North Pole and not in the jet stream. It would be more than 10 days from Fukushima to Europe in the jet stream.
ReplyDeleteWell, their last training Oct.13 as well was only announced on Oct.15. See the handout here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushima-np/images/handouts_111015_02-e.pdf
But, of course - staying vigilant is better than realizing the facts too late...
Sorry for my lousy profile, normally I'd post my response on YouTube, but they prevent links in the comments.
Mauibrad, a polar route is a plausible explanation for the 7 day arrival time in Europe of the leading edge of the initial fallout. It would be interesting to see if the dispersion models showed that route.
ReplyDeleteMs. X, back through about May there was a German affiliate of the CTBTO with a website that had an animated graphic of the spread of the measured radionuclides that were measured as they spread from Fukushima, both east and south in March and then as they receded in April and May.
ReplyDeleteOh, I just found it in my files. This may help you:
http://www.bfs.de/de/ion/imis/animation.gif
This link is no longer available by searching on the net unless you have it from before. You might want to copy the animation. The data on this stops on June 15th, even though I know they must still be monitoring it.
Looking closely at that German CTBTO graphic, the March 11th fallout was first on the West Coast on about the 18th, so that is 7 days. I think that is probably a good figure for how long it takes fallout to get from Fukushima to the West Coast even though 10 days is mentioned in a number of places on the net.
ReplyDeleteThat is also consistent with what I looked at last night in looking closely at how the jet stream is behaving right now since the 6th, so 7 days from the 7th to get to the West Coast for whatever fallout happened on that day.
Follow-up on the NRC story:
ReplyDeleteReid slams ‘witch hunt,’ complaints against nuclear agency chief Jaczko
By Ben Geman - 12/10/11 03:45 PM ET
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is leaping to the defense of Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko, his former aide, who is under attack from other NRC commissioners alleging Jaczko is undermining the agency.
Reid said the other four NRC commissioners – who have taken their case against Jaczko directly to the White House – are looking out for industry interests at the expense of safety.
“It is sad to see those who would place the interests of a single industry over the safety of the American people wage a politically-motivated witch hunt against a man with a proven track record of ensuring that nuclear power is produced as safely and responsibly as possible,” Reid’s office said in a statement Saturday.
Jaczko and the other members of the NRC, which regulates the nation’s nuclear reactors, have clashed over issues including the pace of improving safeguards in the wake of the disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant...
Oh, even more. This is a big thing:
ReplyDeleteCongressman Edward Markey, Dec. 9, 2011 (Emphasis Added):
“Regulatory Meltdown” Reveals Efforts to Improve Nuclear Safety Undermined by Four NRC Commissioners
WASHINGTON, D.C. – As part of his ongoing investigation into U.S. nuclear safety since the Fukushima meltdowns, today Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Congress’s leading voice for nuclear safety, released a blockbuster new report that details how four Commissioners at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) colluded to prevent and then delay the work of the NRC Near-Term Task Force on Fukushima, the entity tasked with making recommendations for improvement to NRC regulations and processes after the Fukushima meltdowns, the worst nuclear disaster in history. The Near-Term Task Force members comprise more than 135 years of collective experience at the NRC, and with full access to expert NRC staff completed a methodical and comprehensive review of NRC’s regulatory system.
Rep. Markey’s office reviewed thousands of pages of documents, including emails, correspondence, meeting minutes and voting records, and found a concerted effort by Commissioners William Magwood, Kristine Svinicki, William Ostendorff and George Apostolakis to undermine the efforts of the Fukushima Task Force with request for endless additional study in an effort to delay the release and implementation of the task force’s final recommendations. Documents also show open hostility on the part of the four Commissioners toward efforts of NRC Chairman Greg Jaczko to fully and quickly implement the recommendations of the Task Force, despite efforts on the part of the Chairman to keep the other four NRC Commissioners fully informed regarding the Japanese emergency.
“The actions of these four Commissioners since the Fukushima nuclear disaster has caused a regulatory meltdown that has left America’s nuclear fleet and the general public at risk,” said Rep. Markey. “Instead of doing what they have been sworn to do, these four Commissioners have attempted a coup on the Chairman and have abdicated their responsibility to the American public to assure the safety of America’s nuclear industry. I call on these four Commissioners to stop the obstruction, do their jobs and quickly move to fully implement the lessons learned from the Fukushima disaster.”
Major findings in the new report include:
Four NRC Commissioners attempted to delay and otherwise impede the creation of the NRC Near-Term Task Force on Fukushima;
Four NRC Commissioners conspired, with each other and with senior NRC staff, to delay the release of and alter the NRC Near-Term Task Force report on Fukushima;
The other NRC Commissioners attempted to slow down or otherwise impede the adoption of the safety recommendations made by the NRC Near-Term Task Force on Fukushima;
NRC Chairman Greg Jaczko kept the other four NRC Commissioners fully informed regarding the Japanese emergency, despite claims to the contrary made by these Commissioners; and
The consideration of the Fukushima safety upgrades is not the only safety-related issue that the other NRC Commissioners have opposed.
testblog,
ReplyDeletethanks for the link. As you stated, the key is to be vigilant.
Mauibrad, in someways the whole NRC regulation thing is a scam anyways. The true affect of regulations is to close down a free market and give someone with political influence an advantage. The regulations are "sold" to the people as a way to protect them, but the reality is the industries control the regulations by "buying" the congressmen.
ReplyDeleteThe real question in this little NRC brouhaha is which two+ industries are fighting it out to get those most advantage. The proper way to figure these thing out is to look deeper in the recommendations and figure out who will make the money/power off of them.
Regarding the NRC Commissioners http://youtu.be/7x74ber5uMU
ReplyDelete