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Japan slams China over close encounter of jets

Japan lodged a diplomatic protest with Beijing on Wednesday after Chinese military jets flew near Japanese military aircraft over the East China Sea, an official said. Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera said two Chinese SU27 fighters approached as close as 30 meters (100 feet) to Japanese aircraft on Wednesday morning. He said the Chinese planes posed a danger to the Japanese aircraft and a serious incident could have occurred. He said the Japanese planes were on a regular surveillance mission in international airspace, and that Japan would continue to defend its territory. Calls to the Chinese defense ministry’s press office rang unanswered. The two countries have increased patrols by ships and military planes to press their conflicting territorial claims in the East China Sea. They had a similar incident on May 24. Tensions between the two Asian rivals worsened in recent years over a group of uninhabited […]

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Officials fear melted reactor fuel is now exposed at Fukushima

Tepco: We don’t know at this point if fuel is uncovered — Large drop in water level — Experts ‘struggling’ to find condition of nuclear cores, nothing is known for all 3 reactors TEPCO: Water in reactor half expected level — Officials with the operator of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant say the water level inside the No.2 reactor’s containment vessel is about half what they had estimated. […] They found the water was around 30 centimeters [11.8 inches] deep. TEPCO officials […] say they don’t know whether the fuel is entirely submerged. […] They believe then flowing out of the reactor building through holes in the chamber. NHK WORLD , June 10, 2014: TEPCO officials are struggling to find […] the condition of the melted fuel […] Officials believe that at reactor number 2, water is leaking […] at the bottom of the containment vessel, but do […]

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Fukushima Watch: Tepco Eyes Radioactive Strontium-Removal System

A storage tank where highly radioactive water leaked at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. European Pressphoto Agency Still trying to work out the bugs in its water processing system, the operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has decided to adopt technology to reduce risks posed by a deadly radioactive isotope stewing in water stored in a thousand tanks at the site. Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Monday that the new technology would remove radioactive strontium from the 400,000 metric tons of highly contaminated water. Kurion Inc., the provider of the technology, has already delivered the first set of equipment to the site for inspection and plans to ship the balance of equipment in the coming weeks, the company said in a statement. The California-based company said it expects the processing system, which can handle 300 tons of water a day, to be operational […]

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Shell signs 20-year LNG deal with Japan

The third largest electric company in Japan, Chubu Electric Power Co., will start receiving liquefied natural gas under a 20-year deal, Shell said Thursday. "Shell has a long history of supplying natural gas to Japan, and this agreement demonstrates our continued commitment to the country," Maarten Wetselaar, executive vice president for Shell’s integrated gas, said in a statement Thursday. Shell’s first LNG sales agreement with Chubu, made through the Dutch company’s Singapore-based subsidiary Shell Eastern Trading Ltd., calls for up to 12 deliveries a year, or about 720,000 tons, starting in October. Shell didn’t say from where the LNG would be sourced specifically. Japan, the second-largest importer of fossil fuels in the world, starting taking on more LNG in response to the shortage of power brought on by the meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in 2011. With 50 years in the LNG business, Wetselaar said, Shell […]

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Japan gets first LNG cargo from Papua New Guinea

Japan will receive the first shipment of liquefied natural gas from a project led by Exxon Mobil in Papua New Guinea, project developers said. Tokyo Electric Power Co. bought the first cargo of LNG from the partnership in charge of the $19 billion facility. The Japanese energy sector has taken on more LNG in response to the shortage of power brought on by the 2011 meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, operated by TEPCO. Construction at the LNG facility in Papua New Guinea began in 2010. Its first section went into service in April and the entire facility can produce 6.9 million tons of LNG per year. More than 400 miles of natural gas pipeline from production and processing facilities in Papua New Guinea are associated with the LNG terminal. Peter Graham, regional project director for Exxon Mobil, said in a statement the LNG delivery to TEPCO […]

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Japan Court Blocks Reactor Restarts

A court ruled Wednesday that Kansai Electric Power Co. can’t restart two of its reactors due to safety concerns, dealing a setback to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s efforts to jump-start Japan’s idled nuclear power plants. The ruling marks the first time since the Fukushima nuclear crisis erupted in March 2011 that a court has ordered a power supplier not to bring a nuclear plant online. The Fukui District Court prohibited a restart of the Oi Nos. 3-4 reactors in western Japan. Judge Hideaki Higuchi cited uncertainty surrounding the plant’s ability to withstand earthquakes, local media reported. "If there is any real risk, it is natural to ban operations," Mr. Higuchi was quoted as saying. Kansai Electric, Japan’s second-largest utility after Tokyo Electric Power Co. , will appeal to the region’s high court, a spokesman said, although the decision probably won’t come this year. "It is deplorable that we couldn’t […]

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Panicked Workers Fled Fukushima Plant in 2011 Despite Orders, Record Shows

At the most dire moment of the Fukushima nuclear crisis three years ago, hundreds of panicked employees abandoned the damaged plant despite being ordered to remain on hand for last-ditch efforts to regain control of its runaway reactors, according to a previously undisclosed record of the accident that was reported Tuesday by a major Japanese newspaper. The newspaper, The Asahi Shimbun, said that the episode was described by Masao Yoshida, the manager of the Fukushima Daiichi plant at the time of the accident, in a series of interviews conducted by government investigators several months after the March 2011 disaster. The newspaper said it had obtained a copy of a 400-page transcript of the interviews, which had been referred to in government accounts of the accident but had never been released in its entirety. Such a transcript could represent the only testimony of the accident left by Mr. […]

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Fukushima Seawater Radiation Rises To New All Time High

The mainstream media may have long forgotten about the Fukushima tragedy (as it certainly goes against the far more popular and palatable meme of a Japan “recovery” courtesy of Abenomics) but that does not mean it is fixed or even contained. Quite the contrary. As a rare update from Japan’s Jiji news agency reminds us, on Friday radiation at five monitoring points in waters adjacent to the crippled Fukushima No. 1 power station spiked to all-time highs according to the semi-nationalized TEPCO. The measurements follow similar highs detected in groundwater at the plant. Why the surge in radioactivity? Officials of Tepco, as the utility is known, said “the cause of the seawater spike is unknown.” This is the same Tepco which for years lied that there is nothing to worry about in Fukushima, which arbitrarily hiked the maximum radiation exposure threshold as it saw fit, and which with the […]

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Forced to Flee Radiation, Fearful Japanese Villagers Are Reluctant to Return

Ever since they were forced to evacuate during the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant three years ago, Kim Eunja and her husband have refused to return to their hilltop home amid the majestic mountains of this rural village for fear of radiation. But now they say they may have no choice. After a nearly $250 million radiation cleanup here, the central government this month declared Miyakoji the first community within a 12-mile evacuation zone around the plant to be reopened to residents. The decision will bring an end to the monthly stipends from the plant’s operator that have allowed Ms. Kim to relocate to an apartment in a city an hour away. “The government and the media say the radiation has been cleaned up, but it’s all lies,” said Ms. Kim, 55, who is from South Korea, and who with her Japanese husband runs […]

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Japan posts largest-ever trade deficit

Japan suffered its largest-ever trade deficit last fiscal year, underlining a wrenching structural shift for an economy long renowned as an export powerhouse. The gap between the value of Japan’s exports and that of its imports grew by more than two-thirds in the 12 months through March, to Y13.7tn ($134bn), according to government data released on Monday. It was the third consecutive fiscal year of deficits, the longest streak since comparable records began in the 1970s. Toyota , Hitachi and other large Japanese companies have enjoyed soaring profits as a result of the weaker yen, which has fallen by a fifth against other major currencies since November 2012. But the improvement has come less from increased exports than from flattered exchange rates on overseas sales. Japanese export volumes have barely risen and the yen value of goods shipped to foreign markets has increased much more slowly than the value […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple