Andy Roberts

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• I posted to distributedresearch.net

  My new Ubuntu-flavoured ThinkPad is computing heaven

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/05/23/my-new-ubuntu-flavoured-thinkpad-is-computing-heaven

  As antidote to all the iPad2 hype, Cory Doctorow is pleased with his Lenovo ThinkPad X220, pleased as punch about how undramatic, yet graceful, his computing life has becomeThis article titled “My new Ubuntu-flavoured ThinkPad is computing heaven” was written by Cory Doctorow, for guardian.co.uk on Tuesday 17th May 2011 07.21 UTCThis week, I finally got my new Lenovo ThinkPad X220, the latest and skinniest in the Lenovo X-series of fast, skinny, rugged, all-black, no-nonsense machines. This – my third X-series ThinkPad – is shaping up to be everything I expected from the line and more: it is slim, 2.5cm (1in), configured with its smallest battery and very light – 1.5kg (3lbs 4oz) or so; size up to the biggest battery and you get eight or nine hours of work at a mere 1.8kg; snap on the “Slice” battery, which snugly fits underneath the machine, fattening it up to 4cm, and the weight goes to 2.5 kg – but the Slice delivers about 24 hours of continuous operation without plugging in.I haven’t yet taken the machine on the road, but 24 hours’ worth of battery means that I’ll be able to leave my mains adapter at home for the next all-day conference or travel day, which saves weight overall. It’s got a 64-bit, 2.7GHz Sandy Bridge processor, 8GB of RAM, and I’m about to slap in a 600GB Intel solid-state drive that’ll increase its speed and battery life even more.I had some snags getting this machine in, partly because of supply-chain problems with Japanese components from factories affected by the tsunami and earthquake, and partly attributable to Lenovo’s less-than-stellar ordering system, which stands in sharp contrast to the quality of its machines.I switched to ThinkPads full time in 2006, after owning practically every model of Apple PowerBook released to that date, starting with a PowerBook 145 in 1992 or so. They were generally good machines, design-y, and they ran the Mac OS, which was the only operating system I used on my desktop. I’d administered various flavours of Unix before then – some Silicon Graphics Irix machines, a couple Apple A/UX machines, and then a series of GNU/Linux servers – but by the time I bought my first ThinkPad, I hadn’t done anything Unix-y in years and couldn’t do much of anything without intense search-engine assistance.My ThinkPad switch was inspired by a desire to try out the Ubuntu flavour of GNU/Linux, which I’d heard great things about. So I downloaded the latest version of Ubuntu – Canonical, the company that oversees Ubuntu, does two releases per year – burned it to a CD and stuck it in the computer, and, a few minutes later, I was up and running. At the time, I promised to document my joys and frustrations with GNU/Linux, but a few months later, once I’d been soaking in the OS for a while, I went back over my notes and discovered that there was practically nothing to report on that score.For a week or two I did a lot of mis-mousing and mis-typing as I learned where Ubuntu’s equivalents to MacOS commands were. A few years later, I experienced the exact same sensation after we redid our kitchen and the builders insisted that regulations required us to move our cutlery and dishes to new places and I spent two weeks opening the cutlery drawer and finding myself looking at a load of pots and pans.One day, I woke up and I just knew where everything was, which is exactly what happened with my Ubuntu switch.The problem with writing about switching to Ubuntu is that there’s very little to report on, because it is just about the least dramatic operating system I’ve used, especially when paired with the extended warranties Lenovo sells for its ThinkPads. By this I mean that Ubuntu, basically, just works as well as or better than any other OS I’ve ever used, and what’s more, it fails with incredible grace.This graceful failure is wonderful stuff, and after a lifetime of using computers I’ve decided that it’s the thing I value most in my technology. Ubuntu is free – free as in beer, costing nothing; free as in speech, in that anyone can modify or improve it. That means that on those occasions where I’ve had a bad disk or some other problem, I could simply download a new copy of the OS, stick it on a USB drive and restart from the drive to troubleshoot and repair the OS. I don’t have to take a rescue disk on the road with me, don’t have to try to run out to the Apple store at 8:55PM to try to buy another copy of the OS before the shop closes. Anywhere I’ve got a working computer and an internet connection, I’ve got everything I need to fail gracefully.Ubuntu is a GNU/Linux “distribution” – that is, a carefully curated collection of free tools, gathered together, tested and packaged so as to provide an elegant, coherent computing experience. In this regard, it’s not so different from any other OS. There is a committee of design-oriented, thoughtful people who make aesthetic and technical decisions about what I should be doing with my computer and put them all together – this committee includes passionate users, developers and Canonical employees. Ubuntu has its own version of an App Store, though Ubuntu’s version, derived from a GNU/Linux project called Debian, has been around for years longer than the Apple, Android and Microsoft versions. Practically everything in it is free – and it’s been tested and reviewed and described to a nicety, so that whenever you have a need you can just search the Ubuntu Software Centre for something to solve your problem, evaluate the small list of returned options, find the app you want, click and install. If you don’t like it, you can install another.But this free business has serious knock-on effects in the graceful failure department. Ubuntu’s Software Centre can be instructed to spit out a simple list of all the apps (“packages” in Ubuntu-speak) you’ve installed. Any time you need to set up a new machine or recover an old one, you simply feed the list to the package manager and it will fetch all your apps and install and configure them without any further intervention. This is nothing short of miraculous when compared with the clumsy, desperate fumbling with original disks and serial numbers from the commercial software world. That’s what free-as-in-beer gets you.But free-as-in-speech also delivers benefits to the failing computer and its user: any time you want to do something with your computer that Canonical hasn’t countenanced (or has rejected), it’s pretty trivial to do so. You don’t have to jailbreak Ubuntu to get it to run unapproved software. In fact, Ubuntu allows you to add programs from unapproved third parties with the same Software Centre, and hooks those programs up to its automatic updater. For example, I subscribe directly to the updates to Banshee, an excellent, powerful, free, open replacement for iTunes. These updates tend to be a little ahead of the official Ubuntu releases, where each revision is tested before it is packaged and updated.This is “curated computing” at it absolute best: you get all the benefits of obsessive, bold design from a closely coordinated team that shares a coherent vision for the way the computer works. But you also get to disagree with them as much or as little as you want. You can sit down and use Ubuntu and it will get out of your way and just let you do whatever you want your computer to do for you, with no drama. But when you find the need to tinker, Ubuntu reveals as much configurability as you could care for, starting with installing unapproved programs and drilling all the way down to rewriting parts of the OS if you have the ability and desire to do so. It’s a system you can trust, but not a system that you must trust.I must disclose that Ubuntu’s founder, Mark Shuttleworth, once made a donation to my former employer, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which helped fund my position at the time – there were no conditions attached to this funding – and that he subsequently personally commissioned a short story from me. Neither of these interactions had any bearing on my decision to try and continue using Ubuntu – I tried the OS on advice from Google’s Chris DiBona, and continued to use it due to my overall great experiences with the technology.Speaking of great experiences, I mentioned the Lenovo hardware warranty above. This as graceful as failure gets. For £127.44, I get three years’ worth of on-site, next-day, hardware replacement service. I used to keep two Powerbooks on the go at a time so that when one suffered a technical disaster I could switch to the other one while I waited one to three weeks for Apple to fix it. With my ThinkPad, I just call a toll-free number and the next day, or sometimes the day after, a technician comes to my office or hotel room practically anywhere in the world and fixes my computer. This warranty is provided through IBM Global Services – IBM flogged its ThinkPad business to Lenovo years ago, but held on to the services division – and it has been almost impeccable in the three or four times I’ve used it.Nine years ago, I quit smoking. My doctor asked me what I planned to think about when I craved a cigarette. I told him I would concentrate on the health benefits, and he shook his head. “You’re 31 years old. The major health benefit you’re going to get from quitting smoking is that you’re not going to get cancer in 20 or 30 years. That’s not going to shore up your willpower when you crave a cigarette tomorrow.” So I thought about it and realised that I was spending one or two laptops’ worth of money on cigarettes every year. And from then on, whenever I got a cig craving I just thought about all the lovely laptops I’d be able to buy in the years to come by not giving my money to the death merchants whose products were killing me. Every time I get a new lappie now, I get a real thrill, a funny phantom association with good health.I was once a computer hobbyist. I loved to geek out about computers. I can still really get into the subject, but for the most part, I just want to Get Stuff Done with my computer. I am pleased as punch to have arrived at such an undramatic place in my computing life. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogMy new Ubuntu-flavoured ThinkPad is computing heavenRelated posts:SocialSoftwareWiki – Design Patterns of Social ComputingFree FTP Client Software – Using Filezilla to update WebsitesI opened my Mac mini

  

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  May 23 2011, 4:20am | Comments »

• I posted to distributedresearch.net

  Japan hit by earthquake and tsunami warning

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/04/07/japan-hit-by-earthquake-and-tsunami-warning

  In Japan, an alert for tsunami wave of up to two metres has been issued for the area affected by last month’s big earthquake.

  This article titled “Japan hit by earthquake and tsunami warning” was written by James Meikle, for guardian.co.uk on Thursday 7th April 2011 15.59 UTC A 7.4 magnitude earthquake has stuck off the north-eastern coast of Japan, triggering a tsunami alert. The warning has been issued in the same area where thousands of lives were lost last month after a magnitude 9 quake and tsunami which damaged reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. The Japan meteorological agency issued a warning for a wave of up to two metres in a coastal area devastated by last month’s tsunami. Officials say Thursday’s quake, which happened late at night local time, hit 25 miles under water off the coast of Miyagi prefecture. People in the area were told to “evacuate immediately” to a safe place away from the shore. Announcers on Japan’s public broadcaster NHK told coastal residents to go to higher ground away from the shore. A wave of up to half a metre was expected in neighbouring provinces. Buildings in Tokyo, more than 200 miles away, shook for about a minute. The US Geological Survey gave the preliminary magnitude as 7.4 and said the quake was off the eastern coast 60 miles from Sendai and 90 miles from Fukushima. Hundred of aftershocks have followed the 11 March quake but few have been stronger than magnitude 7. Officials at the Fukushima plant said there was no immediate sign of new problems.

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  Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogJapan hit by earthquake and tsunami warning

  Related posts:Earthquake in Japan triggers Tsunami – Video New Tsunami Alert in Japan After the earthquake, a tsunami of death and destruction in Japan

  

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  April 7 2011, 11:06am | Comments »

• I posted to distributedresearch.net

  New Tsunami Alert in Japan

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/04/07/new-tsunami-alert-in-japan

  After a new 7.4 strong earthquake at sea near Japan, there’s a tsunami alert out with a possible 2 metre wave already formed.

  Workers trying to bring the stricken nuclear power plant at Fukushima under control have already been evacuated. Tsunami warnings and advice have been issued for a stretch of more than 482km of the northeastern coast from Aomori prefecture in the north to Ibaraki prefecture in central Japan, just north of Tokyo. Hundreds of aftershocks have shaken the northeast region devastated by the March 11 earthquake, but few have been stronger than 7.0 on the logarithmic richter scale. Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogNew Tsunami Alert in Japan

  Related posts:Japan hit by earthquake and tsunami warning Earthquake in Japan triggers Tsunami – Video Fukushima nuclear plant blast puts Japan on high alert

  

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  April 7 2011, 10:57am | Comments »

• I posted to distributedresearch.net

  Honda considers suspending UK production after Japanese crisis

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/04/07/honda-considers-suspending-uk-production-after-japanese-crisis

  Carmakers Honda are considering a plan for coping with the parts shortage in Swindon as the global impact of earthquake and tsunami takes hold

  This article titled “Honda considers suspending UK production after Japanese crisis” was written by Tom Bawden and Justin McCurry in Tokyo, for The Observer on Saturday 2nd April 2011 23.13 UTC Honda could be forced to halt production at its car plant in Swindon next month as the repercussions of Japan’s devastating earthquake and tsunami reach British factories. At a crunch meeting this week, the Japanese carmaker will agree a plan on how to tackle the growing shortage of key components such as satnavs. Executives will discuss a range of options, including a temporary closure of the Swindon plant, which employs about 3,000 staff, or a period of reduced production. The plant makes about 165,000 Civics, CR-V compact SUVs, and Jazz superminis a year and is braced for a shortage of electronic, electrical and brake parts. Each car comprises about 20,000 parts, 10% to 15% of which come from Japan. A Honda spokesman said: “All scenarios are a possibility. There will be an impact, although it won’t be till May. We don’t yet know what to do to get around the issue, but a decision will be made some time this week.” Honda is by no means alone, with car manufacturers around the world expecting interruptions to production as component shortages spread worldwide. Toyota’s UK plants in Burnaston, near Derby, and in north Wales are to continue a ban on daily overtime and fortnightly Saturday shifts imposed around the middle of last month, while a Nissan spokesman said the group was “constantly monitoring the situation in the UK and all over its operations”. The shortage of parts in the UK is expected to become increasingly significant over the next month, since many components from Japan take six weeks to arrive. Paul Everitt, the chief executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), said: “The disruption in Japan will have an impact on the UK motor industry, but the scale and timing remain very uncertain.” Initially, carmakers had hoped that most component manufacturers in Japan would be up and running in time to ensure minimal interruptions to overseas supplies. However, in the past fortnight it has become increasingly apparent that the damage and power shortages in Japan will have an impact overseas. Professor ManMohan Sodhi, an expert in supply chain management at Cass Business School in London, said: “There has been an aftershock in car manufacturing that mirrors the aftershocks from an earthquake. They may be smaller, but they are still significant.” In Japan, the economic damage caused by the crisis is already evident. Sales of new vehicles plummeted by 37% in March, the biggest monthly decline since 1974. Although none of the major car manufacturers suffered serious damage to factories, most cannot return to full operation until at least mid-May. Toyota had to halt production at all 18 of its plants in Japan immediately after the earthquake, although two have since reopened to produce a limited number of Prius and two other hybrid models. Honda said it would resume making parts for export markets tomorrow, with production due to restart at all its Japanese factories seven days later – but only at half their original capacity. The firm has not said when manufacturing will return to normal. Nissan, which estimated that its production fell by 55,000 vehicles in March, said it would resume normal operations by mid-April at all but one of its assembly plants. The exception is a factory in Iwaki, north-east Japan, located just 50km from the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

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  Related posts:Japanese nuclear officials fear crack in reactor core Fukushima factor adds pressure to economic fallout from Japan’s crisis Cost of insuring Japanese government debt jumps

  

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  April 6 2011, 6:32pm | Comments »

• I posted to distributedresearch.net

  Japan PM tells Fukushima nuclear plant workers to hold firm

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/04/02/japan-pm-tells-fukushima-nuclear-plant-workers-to-hold-firm

  Naoto Kan Japan‘s PM is visiting the  Japanese tsunami zone as officials try to plug the crack in the reactor housing that may be leaking radioactive water from the nuclear reactor core fuel rods into the sea.

  This article titled “Japan PM tells Fukushima nuclear plant workers to hold firm” was written by Justin McCurry in Fukushima, for The Observer on Saturday 2nd April 2011 17.07 UTC Japan’s prime minister, Naoto Kan, has told workers at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to hold firm in the belief that disaster can be averted, as highly radioactive water continued to seep into the sea. Nuclear officials’ discovery of a crack in a concrete pit at the number two core could offer an explanation for the flow of contaminated water that has jeopardised the operation to calm the reactors and raised fears about radiation finding its way into the sea and soil near the facility. Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) said it would pour concrete into the pit, where radiation measuring 1,000 millisieverts per hour has been recorded, in an attempt to seal the eight-inch long crack. Two feet away from the pit radiation levels dropped to 400 millisieverts. Workers have taken samples of the water in the pit and seawater and are analysing them to determine the level of contamination. Experts said that while the leakage was a cause for concern, radiation would be quickly diluted in the ocean. “With radiation levels rising in seawater next to the plant we have been trying to confirm why that’s happening, and [the crack] could be one source,” Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for Japan’s nuclear and industrial safety agency (Nisa), told reporters. The plant, 240km (150 miles) north of Tokyo, will continue to leak radiation until four of its six reactors have been reconnected to cooling systems that were knocked out by the 11 March earthquake and tsunami. An artificial “floating island” is being towed to the plant to store the contaminated seawater, samples of which have shown radiation levels 4,000 times the legal limit. The vast tanker could store about 10,000 tonnes of water, Tepco said; an estimated 13,000 tonnes of contaminated water has built up beneath some of the reactors. “We are trying to employ as many measures as possible to regain control of the situation,” a Tepco official said, adding that he had “high hopes” for the storage vessel. Radiation levels in the plant and its vicinity have reached such high levels that Tepco is looking to hire special workers who are prepared to enter contaminated areas to perform essential tasks before rushing out to avoid prolonged exposure. In return for their bravery the “jumpers” are reportedly being offered up to $5,000 (£3,000) a shift, Japanese media has reported. Kan has been to visit an evacuation centre in the coastal town of Rikuzentakata, which was engulfed by the tsunami. Most of its 23,000 residents were killed or injured. He later entered the 20km zone around the Fukushima plant from which 70,000 people have been evacuated. He told Tepco workers, troops and firefighters: ”I want you to fight with the conviction that you absolutely cannot lose this battle.” Police said more than 11,800 people had been confirmed dead in the disaster, while more than 15,540 people remained missing. More than 165,000 people are living in shelters.

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  Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogJapan PM tells Fukushima nuclear plant workers to hold firm

  Related posts:Japanese nuclear firm admits error on radiation reading Visualising radiation leaks from the Fukushima nuclear power plant Radioactive water from Japan’s Fukushima plant is leaking into sea

  

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  April 2 2011, 4:04pm | Comments »

• I posted to distributedresearch.net

  Radioactive water from Japan’s Fukushima plant is leaking into sea

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/04/02/radioactive-water-from-japans-fukushima-plant-is-leaking-into-sea

  Tepco officials say that a 20cm crack found in a containment pit under reactor two may be source of radioactive water from Japan‘s Fukushima plant leaking into the sea.

  This article titled “Radioactive water from Japan’s Fukushima plant is leaking into sea” was written by David Batty and agencies, for guardian.co.uk on Saturday 2nd April 2011 12.14 UTC Radioactive water from Japan’s quake-striken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is leaking into the sea, its operator said. The 20cm (8in) crack in a containment pit under reactor two may be the source of recent radiation in coastal waters, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) officials said. Hidehiko Nishiyama, deputy director-general of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, said Tepco was planning to pour concrete into the pit to seal the crack, which may have been leaking since the magnitude 9.0 earthquake three weeks ago. “This could be one of the sources of seawater contamination,” Nishiyama said. “There could be other similar cracks in the area, and we must find them as quickly as possible.” Readings released on Saturday showed radiation in seawater had spread to 25 miles (40km) south of the plant. The concentration of iodine there was twice the legal limit, but officials stressed it was still well below levels that are dangerous to human health. The announcement of the radioactive leak came as Japan’s prime minister Naoto Kan surveyed the damage in the town of Rikuzentakata, which was gutted by the devastating tsunami that hit the country following the quake. The prime minister bowed his head for a minute of silence in front of the town hall, one of the few buildings still standing, which has all its windows blown out and debris piled up in front of it. “The government fully supports you until the end,” Kan later told 250 people at an elementary school that is serving as an evacuation centre. He met with the town’s mayor, Megumi Shimanuki, whose 38-year-old wife was swept away in the wave and is still missing. Shimanuki, whose family is living in a similar shelter 100 miles (160km) away in Natori, said Kan did not spend enough time with people on the ground. “The government has been too focused on the Fukushima power plant rather than the tsunami victims,” said Shimanuki, 35. “Both deserve attention.” One member of the power plant crew described difficult conditions inside the complex in an interview in the Mainichi newspaper. He said the plant has run out of the nylon protective booties that workers put over their shoes. “We only put something like plastic garbage bags you can buy at a convenience store and sealed them with masking tape,” said the anonymous worker. He added that the grounds of the power plant were littered with dead fish churned up by the tsunami. Japanese media reported that nuclear workers had been offered up to 400,000 yen (£3,000) a day to work inside the crippled reactors. Before the crisis some contract workers were reportedly being paid as little as 10,000 to 20,000 yen (£75 to £150) a day. Three weeks after the tsunami more than 165,000 people are living in shelters, while 260,000 households still do not have running water and 170,000 do not have electricity.

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  Related posts:Fukushima nuclear plant blast puts Japan on high alert Japan faces new setback in fight to avert disaster at Fukushima plant Visualising radiation leaks from the Fukushima nuclear power plant

  

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  April 2 2011, 2:40pm | Comments »

• I posted to distributedresearch.net

  Japanese nuclear firm admits error on radiation reading

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/28/japanese-nuclear-firm-admits-error-on-radiation-reading

  Tokyo Electric Power who run the ill fated Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant says initial reports of radiation levels 10m times higher than normal in parts of No 2 reactor were inaccurate.

  This article titled “Japanese nuclear firm admits error on radiation reading” was written by Justin McCurry in Tokyo, for The Guardian on Monday 28th March 2011 00.10 UTC Fresh doubt has been cast on the handling of the Fukushima nuclear crisis after officials admitted wildly overstating levels of radiation, prompting an evacuation of the nuclear site damaged by the 11 March earthquake and tsunami. Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) said initial reports of a level 10m times higher than normal in parts of the No 2 reactor were inaccurate, although it could not say by how much. Tepco said at first that the worker who took the measurement, of a pool of water in the reactor’s basement turbine building, had fled before taking a second reading. The discovery prompted another evacuation at the site, halting work to pump and store radioactive water that has built up in the turbine buildings of three of the six reactors. Tepco later said the pool of water had been contaminated but the extremely high reading was a mistake. “The number is not credible,” spokesman Takashi Kurita said. “We are very sorry.” However, later reports on Sunday showed contamination 100,000 times normal in water at reactor No 2, and 1,850 times normal in the nearby sea, the most alarming levels since the crisis began. Evidence of dangerous contamination in reactor No 2 emerged days after three workers were exposed to high levels while repairing the cooling system at the No 3 reactor. Two of the men received suspected beta ray burns after stepping into water. Reports said the workers were due to be discharged from hospital on Monday. One pump is being used to extract radioactive water, and two more will be taken to the site. The US military is sending barges loaded with 500,000 gallons of fresh water to nearby Onahama Bay. Early this morning a magnitude 6.5 earthquake rocked north Japan, the latest aftershock, and officials warned it would trigger a 50 cm (two ft) tsunami. Two of Fukushima’s six reactors are safe, having achieved “cool shutdown”, but the other four have yet to be brought under control. Japan’s nuclear safety agency, Nisa, said the temperature and pressure inside all six reactors had stabilised. Yukio Edano, the chief government spokesman, said the myriad problems at the plant were no closer to being resolved. “We have restored power and pumped in fresh water, and we are making basic steps towards improvement. But there is still no room for complacency.” Modest progress was made on removing contaminated water and stepping up work to cool the reactors with fresh water, rather than corrosive sea water, over the weekend. But Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said the emergency could continue for weeks, or possibly months. Concern over food safety spread to fishing over the weekend when officials said seawater samples taken 20 miles off the coast of Fukushima contained 1,850 times the normal level of radioactivity. Nisa said the tainted seawater posed no risk: “Ocean currents will disperse radiation particles and so it will be very diluted by the time it is consumed by fish and seaweed, and even more by the time they are consumed by humans. There is no need to worry about health risks.” US authorities said on Sunday night that low concentrations of radiation in samples of Massachusetts rainwater were probably caused by Fukushima. Nevada, California, Hawaii, Colorado and Washington state have also reported tiny amounts of radiation from the accident but officials said they presented no health risks.

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  Related posts:Japanese nuclear officials fear crack in reactor core Japanese nuclear plant hit by fire and third explosion Visualising radiation leaks from the Fukushima nuclear power plant

  

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  March 28 2011, 11:32am | Comments »

• I posted to distributedresearch.net

  Japanese nuclear officials fear crack in reactor core

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/25/japanese-nuclear-officials-fear-crack-in-reactor-core

  Possible core damage at the Japanese Fukushima nuclear power plant could be causing a leak of high levels of radiation and oh no! this is the number 3 reactor – the one with the much more deadly plutonium mixture. MOX = Plutonium-uranium mixed oxide fuel

  This article titled “Japanese nuclear officials fear crack in reactor core” was written by Justin McCurry in Tokyo, for The Guardian on Friday 25th March 2011 09.12 UTC Nuclear safety officials in Japan fear the core of a reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant may have cracked, causing a leak of high levels of radiation. Growing uncertainty over the state of the stricken reactor prompted the government to tell people living within a 12-19 mile (20-30km) radius of the plant to consider leaving their homes temporarily. The government’s chief spokesman, Yukio Edano, said 130,000 residents in the area had been encouraged to leave to improve their quality of life, not because their health was at risk. The nuclear emergency, 150 miles north of Tokyo, has caused severe disruption to business, supply routes and other services in the area. On Thursday, three workers were exposed to radiation after stepping in contaminated water in the turbine building of the No 3 reactor. They were trying to cool the crippled reactor when the accident occurred. “The contaminated water had 10,000 times the amount of radiation as would be found in water circulating from a normally operating reactor,” said Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for Japan’s nuclear safety agency. “It is possible that there is damage to the reactor.” Two of the men received possible beta ray burns to their legs. All three have been transferred to a special radiation treatment facility. Edano said the source of the leak remained unknown. “We are exploring every possibility, but we don’t think this is a new situation, rather that a certain amount of radiation may have leaked from the reactor. This is a possibility that we have been mentioning for some time. “But at this point we don’t know if the radiation is coming from the reactor itself or from another source.” Nuclear officials say the leak may have come from pipes or the reactor’s pool for storing spent fuel rods, which workers have been struggling to cool off since the plant was badly damaged in the 11 March earthquake and tsunami. Officials were preparing themselves for the possibility that the reactor core was damaged in an explosion three days after the disaster that destroyed its containment building. The reactor contains 170 tonnes of radioactive fuel in its core, and is the only one of the facility’s six reactors that contains the potentially more dangerous plutonium-uranium mixed oxide fuel. Thursday’s accident forced a temporary halt to work on two reactors while technicians check radiation levels. “We should try to avoid delays if at all possible, but we also need to ensure that the people working there are safe,” Nishiyama said.

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  March 25 2011, 5:21am | Comments »

• I posted to distributedresearch.net

  Fukushima workers exposed to high radiation levels

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/20/fukushima-workers-exposed-to-high-radiation-levels

  Six workers at stricken Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan assigned to new tasks, while food supply problems grow.

  This article titled “Fukushima workers exposed to high radiation levels” was written by Justin McCurry in Osaka and Tania Branigan, for The Guardian on Sunday 20th March 2011 12.32 UTC Six workers at the Fukushima nuclear power plant have been exposed to radiation levels beyond the usual legal limit while carrying out emergency operations to make the complex safe. The news came amid reports that radiation from the stricken plant had found its way into the food supply, raising anxiety in a country already struggling to deal with the aftermath of the worst crisis in its postwar history. The facility’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), said it would have to vent radioactive gas from reactor 3, but later called off the risky procedure after pressure inside stabilised, albeit at a relatively high level. The Kyodo news agency reported that Tepco said six staff members had been exposed to more than 100 milliSieverts of radiation, but had been assigned to other tasks and were continuing to work because they had not shown any abnormal signs since being exposed. The government earlier increased to 250 mSv the limit for those working in the emergency operation. Japan’s fire and disaster management agency said readings of up to 27 mSv were detected on 50 firefighters. They were decontaminated after a 13-hour operation to spray water into the spent fuel pool at reactor 3 ended in the early hours of the morning. On Sunday morning, workers doused a pool at reactor 4, also a cause of concern, for the first time. “I think the situation is improving step by step,” the deputy chief cabinet secretary, Tetsuro Fukuyama, told a news conference. Yukiya Amano, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), heralded a “strengthening” of work. But Hidehiko Nishiyama, deputy-general at Japan’s Nuclear Safety Agency, cautioned: “We are making progress … [but] we shouldn’t be too optimistic.” Technicians have already restored power lines to reactors 1 and 2. They hope they can restore cooling systems, although the pumps may well have been damaged by the earthquake, tsunami and subsequent explosions at the plant. David Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists in the US told Reuters: “The workers need to go through the plant, figure out what survived and what didn’t, what can be readily repaired and get the cooling systems back up and running to deal with the cores and the spent fuel pools.” Tepco’s president has made a public apology for “causing such great concern and nuisance”. The firm has been widely criticised for not being open enough about the problems at the facility and its attempts to remedy them. The government’s chief spokesman, Yukio Edano, confirmed the plant would not be used again. The nuclear safety agency said the facility could be buried in sand and concrete, as happened at Chernobyl following the nuclear disaster in 1986, but has said that trying to cool the reactors remains the priority for now. Japan is considering a temporary ban on sales of food products from the Fukushima region after levels of radiation exceeding government limits were found in milk and spinach. The contaminated food and water pose no threat to human health, Edano said, adding that the tainted milk and spinach had not found its way on to the market. “These levels do not pose an immediate threat to your health. Please stay calm.” Iodine-131 was present in milk at a farm 20 miles away from the crippled nuclear plant and in spinach grown at farms more than 60 miles away in neighbouring Ibaraki. Tiny amounts of radioactive iodine have been found in tap water in and around Tokyo, about 150 miles away from the atomic plant, and five prefectures near Fukushima. The education and science ministry said traces of another radioactive material, caesium-137, had been identified in tap water in nearby Tochigi and Gunma prefectures, but posed no danger to people even if ingested. The government is to provide daily counts of radioactive materials in tap water from all of the affected areas, as well as levels in atmospheric fallout such as rain and dust. Radiation was also detected on fava beans exported to Taiwan. An official from Taiwan’s department of health said a shipment of beans from Japan’s south-western Kyushu island had shown slightly higher radiation than naturally occurring trace levels. The department said the radiation, detected only on the surface of the beans, was well below Taiwan’s legal limit and not harmful to human health. Radioactive dust and particles were recorded in the greater Tokyo area but posed no risk to health, the government said on Sunday. Edano said someone who drank the tainted milk for a year would receive the same amount of radiation as in a single CT health scan; eating the spinach would be the equivalent of one-fifth. He said the contaminated water, milk and spinach would have to be consumed in enormous quantities over a long period to pose a threat to health. “If you eat it once, or twice or even for several days, it’s not just that it’s not an immediate threat to health, it’s that even in the future it is not a risk,” he said. “Experts say there is no threat to human health.” Graham Andrew, a senior IAEA official, told reporters in Geneva that Japan was considering halting food sales from the affected region. The spread of radioactivity to the food supply is already affecting Japanese food exports. South Korea, Indonesia, Thailand, Taiwan and Singapore have started screening food arriving from the country. Local farmers said they were worried that the discoveries would affect other, so far unaffected, produce from the region, which is known for its rice and several varieties of fruit and vegetable. “There will be damaging rumours,” said Shizuko Kohata, a farmer who was evacuated from her home near the Fukushima plant. “I grow things for a living, and I’m worried that I won’t be able to carry on after this.” The government said radioactive iodine-131 present in spinach tested on Wednesday was three to seven times above acceptable government standards. Levels in drinking water from Fukushima were slightly over the limit on Thursday but had decreased significantly by the weekend, the health ministry said. Drinking one litre (1.76 pints) of water with the iodine at Thursday’s levels is the equivalent of receiving one 88th of the radiation from a chest x-ray, said Kazuma Yokota, a spokesman for the prefecture’s disaster response headquarters. Iodine-131 decays within a matter of weeks, but can pose a short-term risk to health, the IAEA said. “There is a short-term risk to human health if radioactive iodine food is absorbed into the human body,” the agency said. “If ingested, it can accumulate in and cause damage to the thyroid. Children and young people are particularly at risk.” A potentially greater concern is caesium-137, which caused widespread damage to the food supply in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster. The substance affects cells in the entire body and can increase the chances of developing cancer.

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  March 20 2011, 9:17am | Comments »

• I posted to distributedresearch.net

  Tsunami survivors in town that vanished search for hope and shelter

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/19/tsunami-survivors-in-town-that-vanished-search-for-hope-and-shelter

  On one of the most badly hit parts of Japan‘s coast, roads have been cleared and a supply chain is being rebuilt after the deadly earthquake and tsunami

  This article titled “Tsunami survivors in town that vanished search for hope and shelter” was written by Jonathan Watts in Minami Sanriku, for The Observer on Saturday 19th March 2011 19.43 UTC Yasuo Kono is digging. So are his daughter and two grandchildren. They scrape deep into the gravel beside a block of concrete that is all that remains of their former home. It is tough and, so far, unrewarding work. But just over a week after their world was turned upside down by the tsunami, Kono is pinning his hopes for the family’s recovery on what they might find in the rubble. “We’re looking for our safe. It’s got everything in it that we need to start again – a million yen, our seal, our family registration documents and our bank books,” he says. “It was very heavy, so I don’t think the tsunami can have taken it very far.” This is optimistic, given the elemental force that tossed cars and trucks around like children’s toys and ripped up the massive concrete sea wall that was supposed to protect Minami Sanriku. But Kono – a widower for two years – half-jokingly believes the spirits in the family shrine will aid his mission: “I think my old wife’s ashes are down there too. She was very careful about money and would never have let it get away from her.” It may seem premature to consider money. But for survivors of Japan’s deadliest postwar disaster, as much as for the government, there is a growing need to calculate the scale of their losses and how to fund a path to recovery. Kono and his family want to get out of the disaster zone of Minami Sanriku, which was pulverised by the tsunami. The roads are open and fuel supplies are starting to return to the area, but unless they can find money, they will be stuck at the shelters that have become home to almost half a million people. In this fishing community, the biggest shelter is the Ocean Plaza gymnasium, where more than 700 people are crammed into corridors, stairwells and offices. Some have made walls from cardboard boxes. Most mark out territory with layers of blankets and futons. It is an impressively functional instant community that appears well organised and polite. Dinner queues are scrupulously observed and people are as careful about taking their shoes off before stepping on cardboard as they are before entering a home. Doctors and nurses provide basic medical care at a makeshift clinic in the former training room. Weightlifting equipment and exercise bikes have been pushed into one corner to make space for the patients, pharmacy and office. Most of the sick are elderly patients with high blood pressure, at least one of whom has died from a combination of cold, poor nutrition and inadequate drug supplies. “We need more medicine, especially drugs to lower blood pressure and laxatives,” said Masafumi Nishizawa, a local doctor who has been running the clinic since his former hospital was destroyed. He was confident that the acute problems were over, but said the chronic problems were likely to get worse in the weeks ahead. “People here have no baths, no beds and no toilets. They will get tired and vulnerable to contagious diseases… It’s a real concern.”   But, after days of survivors having to cope on just one piece of bread or ball of rice, the food situation is improving. Saturday’s dinner in the Ocean Plaza disaster shelter is a boiled egg, a helping of rice and a scoop of seaweed and vegetables. It is the third meal of the day. Minami Sanriku’s mayor, Jin Sato, says he can see hope that the worst might be over. Two roads into the town have been cleared. More supplies are flowing in. The gymnasium is now stacked with hundreds of 50kg bags of rice, piles of donated clothes, giant bundles of blankets, countless boxes of toiletries, instant noodles and nappies. Sato has started to turn his mind from short-term survival to the construction of longer-term housing. “We have food now, but I cannot say it is enough. We have to provide so many meals. We really need more petrol. Without that, we cannot transport supplies and people.” Uncertainty plagues the communities almost as much as the instability of the ground beneath their feet. As in other evacuation centres, there is a noticeboard here, where people post requests for information about loved ones and scan through registers of survivors at other evacuation centres. NTT, Japan’s giant telecoms company, has restored mobile phone signals and organised a charging point outside the shelter. Other help appears to be on its way. Petrol tankers have become far more visible on the local roads and drivers are filling up again at the pumps – albeit often after waiting for several hours. On the road into Minami Sanriku, several shops outside the disaster zone have re-opened and are offering fresh stocks on the shelves for the first time in a week. The 24-hour convenience stores – one of the symbols of modern Japan – expect to follow suit soon. “In the five years I have worked here, we have never closed for even a second. But I had to shut up shop two days ago because we ran out of things to sell,” says Toshiro Abe, manager of a local FamilyMart. “My boss is coming over today to work out how we can start business again.” The economic impact of the earthquake and tsunami has been conservatively estimated at £120bn, but in a country that now faces rolling blackouts, dozens of wrecked ports along a large stretch of coastline and a nuclear industry in crisis mode, this looks like an underestimate. Japan is unsure how many of its people were taken by the sea. The confirmed fatalities are 7,348 – easily outstripping the 1995 Kobe earthquake as the deadliest disaster in the nation’s post-war history. But the number of missing is far from clear. It could be nearly 11,000 – which is the number of reports filed to Japan’s National Police Agency – or even double or triple that figure because many people have been without communications since the earthquake so have no way of reporting a person missing.   Minami Sanriku highlights the difficulties of making this grim calculation. In the immediate aftermath of the tsunami, it was feared that the death toll might be higher here than anywhere else because the destruction was so widespread. Initial accounts suggested 10,000 of the 17,000 population were missing, presumed dead. Yet the official casualty count is just 214 bodies. When the Observer asked mayor Sato to account for the discrepancy, he said the problem lay in the manner of counting. “At first we assumed only the 7,000 at the public shelters had survived, but we realise now that many others sought refuge with friends or left the town. That was our mistake. I still can’t tell you how many are dead. We still don’t know how to make an accurate estimate.” Yoko Saito has come to her own conclusion. Crying in front of the debris that was once her childhood home, she believes her mother is dead, though her body has never been found and she is not included on any casualty list. “She was here when it hit. We have been to all the shelters and cannot find her. I came here to look for something to remember her by. But there is nothing. Nothing at all.” When Saito was a small child, her mother carried her to safety from a tsunami. Since then, the town has built a huge sea defence, run simulations on where the next wave might hit and drilled its citizens on where to evacuate. “I think my mother would have remembered what happened last time and assumed she was safe,” sobbed Saito. The same story can be heard at several points along the coastline. This part of Japan is prone to tsunamis and has some of the world’s best precautions against them. Concrete sea defences have been erected across the mouths of harbours. Residents are instructed each year about warnings and the evacuation plans for their area. But these preparations were based on the last tsunami, 1.5 metres high, which struck 50 years ago. The one that struck last Friday was 10 times higher. The sea walls did not stand a chance. Nor did many of the people who thought they were on safe ground. Takuma Abe, a 36-year-old chiropractor, had rushed his pregnant wife and mother into the hills. They were halfway up the slope when the first surge arrived. “I didn’t think the tsunami could ever get that high, but it caught us,” he says. “We got out and tried to climb on to a rail track, but my arm got trapped and I couldn’t help them up. They were washed away.” His wife’s body was found nearby. His mother, remarkably, survived and is now in hospital. Abe has volunteered to help in the shelter’s clinic. “I have to do something to stop myself going crazy. I still don’t believe it. I don’t want to believe it. I can’t think of the future. My wife is gone. My home is gone. All I have in the world is my driver’s licence and 2,000 yen. But that’s normal here. Everyone has lost so much.” Yet there is hope too in the refugee centre. Takako Abe is nine months pregnant, but was able to move rapidly to safety just before the tsunami struck. “I didn’t pay much attention to the warnings until people screamed at me to evacuate. I couldn’t run very fast, but luckily my home is close to a slope. I was too scared to look back, but I could hear the tsunami behind me. It destroyed my home,” she says. She is now safely ensconced in the Ocean Plaza evacuation centre, where she is close to doctors, medicine and ambulances. The noise and germs, and the lack of sanitation and nutrition, are far from ideal for a pregnant woman. Sometimes there are just two small meals a day. But Abe is just glad that she, her baby, her husband and her parents are still alive. “We’ve lost our home, but so has everyone here. We are luckier than most,” she says. “It’s no good dwelling on things that can’t be changed. We have to look forward and think positively. Things will work out.”

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  March 19 2011, 3:43pm | Comments »

• I posted to distributedresearch.net

  Japan nuclear reactor water-bombing has little effect

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/17/japan-nuclear-reactor-water-bombing-has-little-effect

  Radiation levels are rising rather than falling after the Fukushima No 3 reactor has been doused with hoses and water cannon, while helicopters appear to miss their target with huge bags of seawater. How much water remains in the pool containing the spent rods from reactor number 3, the one that runs on a mixture of the much more highly radioactive plutonium? There are some reports that the pool at number 3 may be leaking.

  This article titled “Japan nuclear reactor water-bombing has little effect” was written by Justin McCurry in Osaka, for guardian.co.uk on Thursday 17th March 2011 14.04 UTC Attempts to cool down a stricken reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan have suffered a further setback with radiation levels rising rather than falling after attempts to douse it with high-pressure hoses. Six fire engines and a police water cannon were sent in on Thursday evening to spray the plant’s No 3 reactor. But afterwards radiation emissions rose from 3,700 microsieverts per hour to 4,000 per hour, the Kyodo news agency quoted Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) as saying. An earlier attempt in which military helicopters dropped thousands of litres of water on the plant also appeared to have failed.   As part of the desperate new tactics to avert nuclear meltdown, Chinook helicopters targeted the No 3 reactor’s spent fuel rod pool, which is overheating and at risk of releasing dangerous radioactive steam. Two helicopters flying at less than 300 feet dumped four loads of water. Footage suggested much of it missed the target. Emergency crews and the military are trying to cool the reactor and replenish a pool containing spent fuel rods. Tepco has been unable to take precise measurements but the pool at No 3 is feared to be almost empty, raising the risk that the rods will overheat and melt, releasing dangerous levels of radiation. Steam believed to have been caused by water boiling in the pool has been seen rising from it since Wednesday. Officials are also worried that the No 4 reactor’s spent fuel pool might be running low. ‘”The highest priority now is to pour adequate water onto the No 3 and No 4 reactors, especially in their spent fuel pools,” said Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman of the government’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency who was quoted by the Kyodo agency. Gregory Jackzo, the chairman of the US nuclear regulatory commission, has told a congressional hearing in Washington that the storage pool at No 4 was in danger of giving off more radioactive material. Hikaru Kuroda, a Tepco official, said: “We are afraid that the water level at [the No 4 reactor] is the lowest. Because we cannot get near it, the only way to monitor the situation is visually from far away.” Tepco said a military helicopter crew had seen some water in the No 4 pool but this could not be confirmed. Hydrogen explosions on Monday and Tuesday blew the roofs off the No 3 and No 4 reactors, removing the last line of defence against radiation leaks.   Tepco has said it is attempting to open a temporary power line to the plant so it can pump water directly into the storage pools and reactor cores. Japan’s nuclear safety agency has said it hopes the power supply will be partially operational within hours. “Once we establish the temporary power supply we will be able to pump seawater into the reactors,” a Tepco spokesman said. “We believe the operation will help cool down the fuel pools,” the defence minister, Toshimi Kitazawa, told reporters. Each helicopter can carry 7.5 tonnes of water per load but the pools each hold 2,000 tonnes, an expert has told public broadcaster NHK. “It will be possible as long as the rods are fully submerged. That means the storage pool would need to be about a third full. But the dousing has to be done repeatedly.” About 70,000 people have been evacuated from a 12-mile (20km) radius around Fukushima Daiichi. Another 140,000 living outside 12 miles but within 18 miles (30km) have been told to stay indoors. Japan’s cabinet spokesman, Yukio Edano, said there was no need to widen the exclusion zone but signs were emerging that other countries were taking a more cautious approach. The worsening situation prompted the US to ask citizens living within 80km to evacuate. ”We are recommending, as a precaution, that American citizens who live within 50 miles of the Fukushima nuclear power plant evacuate the area or to take shelter indoors if safe evacuation is not practical,” the US embassy said in a statement. The British embassy has since issued similar advice and asked citizens living in Tokyo and northern Japan to consider leaving. Elevated but not hazardous levels of radiation have been detected well outside the Fukushima evacuation zone. In Ibaraki prefecture to the south, officials said radiation levels were about 300 times normal levels by late Wednesday morning. It would take three years of constant exposure to these higher levels to raise a person’s risk of cancer.

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  March 17 2011, 9:23am | Comments »

• I posted to distributedresearch.net

  Fukushima fallout: the risks to health

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/15/fukushima-fallout-the-risks-to-health

  The radioactive elements Caesium-137 and iodine-131, which increase the risk of cancer, are the main threats to those in the area around the Fukushima nuclear power station

  This article titled “Fukushima fallout: the risks to health” was written by Ian Sample, for The Guardian on Tuesday 15th March 2011 20.30 UTC Radiation is being carried into the area around Fukushima by a mixture of radioactive products. The two main threats to human health come from caesium-137 and iodine-131. Caesium-137 can cause burns, acute radiation sickness and even death at high doses. It can contaminate food and water and, if ingested, gets distributed around the body, where it builds up in soft tissues, such as muscles. It has a half-life of about 30 years, meaning it takes that long for its radioactivity to fall by half. Over time, it is expelled from the body in urine. Iodine-131, if inhaled or swallowed, will concentrate in the thyroid gland where it can accumulate and cause cancer within a few years. Low doses can reduce the activity of the gland, and make it produce lower levels of hormones. The threat is more serious in children, who have more active thyroids. Officials have distributed potassium iodide pills to people in the exclusion zone around the plant as a prophylactic.; the pills saturate the thyroid with normal iodine, so it cannot absorb as much of the radioactive form. Iodine-131 has a half-life of only eight days, and so decays much more quickly than caesium-137.

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  March 15 2011, 3:35pm | Comments »

• I posted to distributedresearch.net

  Fukushima factor adds pressure to economic fallout from Japan’s crisis

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/15/fukushima-factor-adds-pressure-to-economic-fallout-from-japans-crisis

  Natural disasters are normally followed by v-shaped economic recessions, but the Japanese nuclear power plant explosions have complicated risk assessments.

  This article titled “Fukushima factor adds pressure to economic fallout from Japan’s crisis” was written by Larry Elliott, for The Guardian on Tuesday 15th March 2011 20.16 UTC The three explosions at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan have made the economic impact of last week’s natural disaster far more difficult to assess than the two templates used by analysts – the Kyoto earthquake in 1995 and Hurricane Katrina a decade later – would suggest. Normally, natural disasters are followed by v-shaped recessions. Output is badly affected in the short term, as infrastructure is knocked out and people can’t work or shop. Output falls sharply for three to six months, but then rebounds as the reconstruction starts. Government money is poured into the affected areas, leading to a mini-construction boom as homes, roads and power supplies are rebuilt. Pent-up spending from the period immediately after the crisis is unleashed. Despite Japan’s weak public finances, analysts would expect Tokyo to come up with the money to rebuild the north-eastern parts of the country affected by last week’s earthquake and tsunami.   What makes this crisis different is the nuclear dimension. The three explosions at the Fukushima Daiichi plant puts this incident into a different category from either Kyoto or Katrina. There has been disruption to power supplies and people have been evacuated from a 12-mile exclusion zone around the plant, but it could potentially become far more widespread unless the Japanese can shut the plant down safely and quickly. Some analysts were last night starting to imagine what might happen in the event Tokyo, with 13 million people in its metropolitan district, had to be evacuated because of a radiation cloud heading its way. The economic costs of such an event would be astronomic. In Europe Japan’s crisis is already having an impact. Angela Merkel has ordered a temporary shutdown of Germany’s pre-1980s nuclear stations, which according to estimates account for 7% of the country’s power. That is a significant energy loss for a country that is growing robustly. The second factor is the impact the Sendai earthquake will have on consumer and business confidence. At present the global economy is characterised by a high degree of uncertainty, over the situation in north Africa and the Middle East and now over Japan. Economists think they have a way of quantifying this uncertainty, but they don’t.   So while, in theory, it should be possible to do a full-scale risk assessment of the impact of Japan on, say, the UK, that is not really possible. In theory, the effects should be limited, because Japan is not a major trading partner for the UK and the days of intensive Japanese inward investment are over. The complexity of global supply chains for the goods in which Japan is world leader could mean delays and disruptions in some sectors, – such as consumer electronics and cars – depending on how badly the major Japanese multinationals are affected by shortages of power and materials. One big unknown for the UK is the oil price, which has been adding to inflationary pressure in recent months but has fallen since late last week because traders believe the paralysis in Japan will lead to a drop in global demand. That trend may not last. If it does have a v-shaped recovery Japan will quickly return to more normal levels of oil usage. Meanwhile, the unrest in Bahrain is evidence that the problems for governments in the Middle East are far from over. So estimates that Japan’s crisis will shave perhaps 0.1% or 0.2% off global growth this year, with a similar rebound in 2012, are little more than guesswork. It could be a lot worse than that.

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  March 15 2011, 3:26pm | Comments »

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  Fukushima nuclear power plant second nuclear reactor explosion – Video

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/14/fukushima-nuclear-power-plant-second-nuclear-reactor-explosion-video

  A second nuclear reactor building at the Fukushima Daiichi plant has exploded, and another nuclear core has lost it’s cooling system. A third explosion may follow Friday’s historic earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan.

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  March 14 2011, 5:05am | Comments »

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  Industry in Japan grinds to a halt after quake and tsunami

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/13/industry-in-japan-grinds-to-a-halt-after-quake-and-tsunami

  Insurance costs for damage caused across Japan by the earthquake and tsunami are likely to be in region of £9bn adding a further blow to the indebted Japanese economy.

  This article titled “Industry in Japan grinds to a halt after quake and tsunami” was written by Andrew Clark, for The Observer on Saturday 12th March 2011 19.22 UTC Industry in the world’s third-largest economy all but ground to a halt following the earthquake, as manufacturers ranging from Toyota to Nissan, Sony, Fuji and brewers Kirin and Sapporo shut down their operations in Japan to assess damage and allow staff to check on their families. The quake is a shattering blow to Japan’s already heavily indebted economy, which recently endured a downgrade in its credit rating. Finance minister Yoshihiko Noda raised the prospect of an emergency budget to cope with reconstruction costs, but suggested that this would be hard to compile before the end of March. Global prices for oil, grain and natural gas are likely to rise as a result of damage to Japan’s nuclear power stations, ports and infrastructure. Initial estimates put a figure of $10bn-$15bn (£6.2bn-£9.3bn) on the cost of the quake to insurers – which, if accurate, would rank the disaster among the 10 most costly of the last 30 years. Early assessments indicate that the insurance cost will exceed the $8.5bn bill after last year’s Chilean earthquake, although it is unlikely to rival the record $71bn hit caused by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005. Ultimately, however, natural disasters often stimulate activity, as nations are obliged to pick up the pieces and rebuild. Takuji Okubo, an analyst at Société Générale, said Japanese consumers would have to replace lost cars and appliances, and massive construction would be needed in devastated areas. “The earthquake will most likely lead to stronger growth in 2011, rather than weaker,” he said. The last big tragedy to hit Japan, the Kobe earthquake in 1995, resulted in $100bn of damage and required years of rebuilding. This time the quake hit the north of the country, which, with the exception of the million-strong city of Sendai, is relatively sparsely populated. Dan Ryan, a global economist at IHS Global Insight, said: “If even a small fraction of homes and structures are destroyed – or become structurally unsound and need to be rebuilt – then the damages would be in the tens of billions of dollars.” The Japanese yen rallied late on Friday in the hours after the earthquake – not because of confidence about economic prospects but due to the prospect of stricken Japanese investors repatriating funds from overseas. Tokyo’s stock market is likely to take a hit; in the week after the Kobe earthquake, Japan’s Nikkei index dropped 6% and over six months the market slumped by 25%. The already elevated global price of oil, which is more than $100 a barrel, could be pushed higher as the fallout continues. In a research note, energy analysts at Barclays Capital said: “More product from the bottom of the barrel could be required to replace lost nuclear generation. Rebuilding is an energy-intensive process.”

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  Japan ministers ignored safety warnings over nuclear reactors

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/13/japan-ministers-ignored-safety-warnings-over-nuclear-reactors

  Earthquake seismologist Ishibashi Katsuhiko claimed that an accident was likely and that nuclear plants have ‘fundamental vulnerability’. Fukushima came very close.

  This article titled “Japan ministers ignored safety warnings over nuclear reactors” was written by Robin McKie, science editor, for guardian.co.uk on Saturday 12th March 2011 18.51 UTC The timing of the near nuclear disaster at Fukushima Daiichi could not have been more appropriate. In only a few weeks the world will mark the 25th anniversary of the worst nuclear plant disaster ever to affect our planet – at Chernobyl in Ukraine. A major core meltdown released a deadly cloud of radioactive material over Europe and gave the name Chernobyl a terrible resonance. This weekend it is clear that the name Fukushima came perilously close to achieving a similar notoriety. However, the real embarrassment for the Japanese government is not so much the nature of the accident but the fact it was warned long ago about the risks it faced in building nuclear plants in areas of intense seismic activity. Several years ago, the seismologist Ishibashi Katsuhiko stated, specifically, that such an accident was highly likely to occur. Nuclear power plants in Japan have a “fundamental vulnerability” to major earthquakes, Katsuhiko said in 2007. The government, the power industry and the academic community had seriously underestimated the potential risks posed by major quakes. Katsuhiko, who is professor of urban safety at Kobe University, has highlighted three incidents at reactors between 2005 and 2007. Atomic plants at Onagawa, Shika and Kashiwazaki-Kariwa were all struck by earthquakes that triggered tremors stronger than those to which the reactor had been designed to survive. In the case of the incident at the Kushiwazaki reactor in northwestern Japan, a 6.8-scale earthquake on 16 July 2007 set off a fire that blazed for two hours and allowed radioactive water to leak from the plant. However, no action was taken in the wake of any of these incidents despite Katsuhiko’s warning at the time that the nation’s reactors had “fatal flaws” in their design. Japan is the world’s third largest nuclear power user, with 53 reactors that provide 34.5% of its electricity, and there are plans to increase provision to 50% by 2030. Unfortunately its nuclear industry is bedevilled with controversy In 2002 the president of the country’s largest power utility was forced to resign after he and other senior officials were suspected of falsifying plant safety records. Nor is the nature of its reactor planning inducing much comfort. The trouble is, says Katsuhiko, that Japan began building up its atomic energy system 40 years ago, when seismic activity in the country was comparatively low. This affected the designs of plants which were not built to robust enough standards, the seismologist argues. Since then, Japan has experienced more serious quakes as tension has built up on tectonic plates, culminating in Friday’s devastating earthquake, the worst in Japan for more than 100 years. The result was an incident that came perilously close to triggering a nuclear meltdown. Starved of coolant, the reactor would have heated up dangerously until its fuel rods melted and released a cloud of highly radioactive material. Not surprisingly, the International Atomic Energy Agency has announced it is now urgently seeking details of what happened at Fukushima. The rest of the world – which includes many countries, including Britain, that are preparing significant nuclear expansion plans – will be looking very closely at what it finds.

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  March 13 2011, 11:22am | Comments »

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  Fukushima nuclear plant blast puts Japan on high alert

  http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/12/fukushima-nuclear-plant-blast-puts-japan-on-high-alert

  Warnings of possible meltdown amid radiation leaks with tens of thousands evacuated after plant explosion. Up to 1,300 killed in earthquake and tsunami

  This article titled “Fukushima nuclear plant blast puts Japan on high alert” was written by Ian Sample and Tania Branigan in Beijing, for guardian.co.uk on Saturday 12th March 2011 11.40 UTC Japan is battling to stave off a nuclear disaster after an explosion at a north-eastern nuclear plant in the wake of the enormous earthquake and tsunami. Authorities are evacuating tens of thousands of residents living within a 12 mile (20km) radius of the Fukushima Daiichi plant and those within 6 miles of a second installation in Futuba, 150 miles north of Tokyo. The explosion followed warnings of a possible meltdown after problems with the cooling system and confirmation of a radiation leak at Fukushima No 1 plant. But nuclear safety officials said it was unlikely the reactor had suffered serious damage, according to the Kyodo news agency. It is feared that 1,300 people died in Friday’s double disaster, most being killed as the wall of mud and water engulfed buildings, roads and vehicles, Japanese media reported. But the priority now is to tackle the crisis at the power plant. Kyodo cited an official who said that the rate of hourly radiation leaking from Fukushima was equal to the amount usually permitted in a year. Authorities had previously heralded a successful release of radioactive gases to reduce pressure inside the reactor, which might account for the high levels. “We are now trying to analyse what is behind the explosion,” said the chief cabinet secretary, Yukio Edano. “We ask everyone to take action to secure safety.” Television footage showed the walls of one building had crumbled, leaving only its metal frame, but it was not clear whether it housed the reactor. The Tokyo Power Electric Company, which runs the Fukushima Daiichi plant, said four workers were injured in the explosion. Hours after the blast, officials widened a 6-mile evacuation zone around the plant and around Fukushima No 2 plant. The Tokyo fire department has dispatched an elite Hyper rescue team to the nuclear plant. An uncontrolled temperature rise at the plant could lead to a meltdown of the uranium reactor core. This could burn through the walls of the vessel and release radiation into a containment building that surrounds the reactor. Some fuel is already thought to have melted in the reactor. Japanese media said officials had detected iodine and caesium, elements released when overheating causes core damage. The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said it was urgently seeking information. An explosion of the pressure vessel at the Chernobyl reactor in 1986 led to a vast release of radiation. But experts and authorities urged people to remain calm, suggesting the chances of a major disaster were slight. The crisis began when the 8.9 magnitude earthquake cut out power, turning off the water supply needed to cool the system. The tsunami is thought to have cut off the backup diesel generator an hour later, leading to pressure rising rapidly within the reactor. Earlier in the day a Japanese nuclear safety panel said radiation levels were 1,000 times higher than normal in a control room and eight times higher than normal just outside the plant. Speaking before the blast, Naoto Sekimura, a professor at the University of Tokyo, told the Associated Press a major radioactive disaster was unlikely. “No Chernobyl is possible at a light water reactor. Loss of coolant means a temperature rise, but it also will stop the reaction,” he said. “Even in the worst-case scenario, that would mean some radioactive leakage and equipment damage, but not an explosion. If venting is done carefully, there will be little leakage. Certainly not beyond the 3km radius.” A partial meltdown in one of the light water reactors at Three Mile Island in 1979 resulted in the release of radioactive gases in the most serious incident in the history of the US nuclear power industry. The reactor was eventually brought under control despite a series of errors. The blast has compounded the fears of survivors in the worst hit region, north-eastern Tohoku, where aftershocks continue to rock the ground. @DavidHalton in Sendai city tweeted: “Constant sirens and aircraft that I hope are military that on top of worrying about nuclear fallout and tremors.” Residents woke up after a freezing night on rooftops and in emergency shelters to a sea of mud, water and debris. Earthquakes continued to rock the north-east coast overnight, although some said the worst tremors appeared to be subsiding. Kyodo said rail operators had yet to find four trains after losing contact with them as they operated on coastal lines on Friday. East Japan Railway Company said it did not know how many people were on board the trains. Japan downgraded tsunami warnings in most areas but Tohoku remained on high alert for waves of up to 10 metres high. The tsunami has reached countries across the Pacific region but there were no reports of major damage outside Japan. The country has mobilised 50,000 rescuers, and footage showed some winching people to safety from rooftops. Witnesses said the tsunami had swept inland by up to six miles in Sendai, which has around 1 million inhabitants and is 80 miles from the epicentre. “The flood came in from behind the store and swept around both sides. Cars were flowing right by,” said Wakio Fushima, who owns a grocery shop. “The tsunami was unbelievably fast. Smaller cars were being swept around me and all I could do was sit in my truck,” said driver Koichi Takairin, who was trapped in his four-tonne vehicle by the torrent.

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  March 12 2011, 5:12pm | Comments »

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