Japan's Hamaoka nuke plant closed over quake fears

Monday09, 2011 20:38:10 |English.news.cn

TOKYO, May 9 (Xinhua) -- Chubu Electric Power Co. President Akihisa Mizuno said Monday that the company agreed to a request last week by Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan to suspend the Hamaoka nuclear power plant in Shizuoka Prefecture for safety concern.

"We decided at today's final extraordinary board meeting to suspend operation of the No. 4 and 5 reactors and postpone restarting of the No. 3 reactor," Mizuno told a news conference.

The utility, Japan's third biggest, decided that the firm will mothball reactors No. 1 and No. 2 and idle the No. 4 and No. 5 reactors at Hamaoka plant, which serves central Japan, following the prime minister's direct request coupled with a government report indicating an 87 percent likelihood of a magnitude-8 earthquake or higher striking the area within 30 years.

Naoto Kan asked Chubu Electric Co. to stop operation in Hamaoka on Friday, quoting safety concerns that the nuclear power plant lacks medium- to long-term measures for protection against disasters, such as embankments.

Naoto Kan welcomed the decision, saying the government will make utmost efforts to avoid power shortage in the central region of the Honshu island, an economic power house of Japan.

Japanese government reached the conclusion to suspend Hamaoka plant after evaluating the country's 54 reactors for quake and tsunami vulnerability after the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and ensuing tsunami on March 11 devastated the Pacific coastal regions of northeastern Honshu.

Japan's Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Banri Kaieda said the country's other nuclear plants will not be suspended and the ministry is ready to financially support Chubu Electric Power Co. over Hamaoka.

The company continued operating the 1,137-megawatt No. 4 reactor and the 1,380-megawatt No. 5 reactor at Hamaoka plant after the March 11 disaster, which crippled Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No 1. nuclear plant and led to Japan's worst nuclear crisis.

The 1,100-megawatt No. 3 unit at Hamaoka has been shut for regular checks since November 2010, while No. 1 and No. 2 reactors are in the process of being scrapped.

The plant sits 190 kilometers southwest of Tokyo on a dangerously active fault-line that seismologists monitor carefully for increasing seismic activity.

Concerns about electricity shortages in summer when demand peaks follwoing a shutdown of Hamaoka will purportedly be offset by increased output by non-nuclear power generation.

The Hamaoka plant in Shizuoka, populated by 3.75 million people, is known as "the most dangerous" nuclear power plant in Japan due to its aged reactors, proximity to a massive fault-line and coastal area and inability to sustain a sizable earthquake similar to the quake and tsunami that crippled Fukushima No.1 plant on March 11. (sourced xinhua)

Russia suspends seafood imports from Japan amid radiation fears

Wednesday, April06, 2011 22:42:53 |English.news.cn

MOSCOW, April 6 (Xinhua) -- Russia had suspended seafood imports from 242 Japanese companies due to fears of radiation contamination, Russia's food safety and sanitary watchdog, Rosselkhoznadzor, said in a Wednesday statement.

"The restrictions were introduced after an analysis of threats and risks which arose after the accident at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant," the statement said.

However, Rosselkhoznadzor didn't say how long the ban would last.

According to local reports, Russia imported 57,000 tons of seafood from Japan last year.

Earlier this month, Japan called for calm over radiation concerns, but is itself considering imposing radioactivity restrictions on seafood for the first time after contaminated fish were found.

Also on Wednesday, the Fukushima plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., said it had stopped highly radioactive water from flowing into the Pacific Ocean from the crippled plant by injecting a chemical compound. Editor: yan sourced: xinhua

France urges world nuclear review after Japan crisis

Thu Mar 31, 2011 10:24am GMT

By Chizu Nomiyama and Chisa Fujioka

TOKYO (Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy called on Thursday for a reform of global nuclear standards by the end of the year during a first visit by a foreign leader to Japan since the earthquake and tsunami that triggered its atomic disaster.

Group of 20 chairman Sarkozy said France wants to host a meeting of the bloc's nuclear officials in May to fix new norms in the wake of the crisis at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi plant.

Japan's Prime Minister Naoto Kan supported the idea.

"In order to avoid recurrence of such an accident, it is our duty to accurately share with the world our experience," he said at a joint news conference.

The world's worst atomic crisis since Chernobyl in 1986 is proving hard to contain and has forced an international re-think of the benefits and safety of nuclear power.

It has also compounded an agonizing moment for the Asian nation after the quake and tsunami left more than 27,500 people dead or missing and caused damage that may top $300 billion (186 billion pounds).

First data on the economic impact of the March 11 disasters showed manufacturing slumped the most on record this month as factories shut and supply chains were disrupted, especially in the car and technology sectors for which Japan is renowned.

France, the world's most nuclear-dependent country, is taking a lead in assisting Japan. As well as Sarkozy's show of solidarity by his personal presence, Paris has flown in experts from state-owned nuclear reactor maker Areva.

"Consider me your employee," Areva Chief Executive Anne Lauvergeon told Japanese officials.

The United States and Germany have weighed in too, offering robots to help repair the damaged nuclear plant.

In a worrying development in Switzerland, two female employees were injured when a parcel bomb exploded in the offices of the local nuclear lobby, police said. It was not known who sent it.

Switzerland has frozen the approvals process for three new nuclear stations pending a safety review after Japan's disaster.

Pressure has been growing on Japan to expand the evacuation zone around the Fukushima Daiichi plant where radiation hit 4,000 times legal limits in nearby sea and hindered the battle to contain the world's worst atomic crisis since Chernobyl.

Both the U.N. nuclear watchdog and Japan's own nuclear safety agency have advised Kan to consider widening the 20-km (12-mile) zone round the plant on the northeast Pacific coast.

High radiation was detected at twice that distance away.

Government officials are pleading for Japanese, and the world, to avoid overreaction to what they say are still low-risk levels of radiation away from the plant.

HIGH RADIATION

More than 70,000 people have been evacuated from the 20-km ring. Another 136,000 who live in a 10-km (6-mile) band beyond that have been encouraged to leave or to stay indoors.

U.N. body, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said radiation at Iitate village, 40 km (25 miles) from the plant, exceeded a criterion for evacuation.

Japan's chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the government was reviewing the issue daily but "at this moment, no decision to expand the evacuation area has been made".

Consistently high levels of radiation found in the sea near the complex could mean radiation is leaking out continuously, Japan's nuclear watchdog said. The source is still unknown, adding to the headaches for engineers on the site.

Radioactive iodine in seawater near drains running from the plant was 4,385 times more than the legal limit, the highest recorded so far during the crisis.

In a sign of the extraordinary times Japan is living, one newborn baby's first medical appointment was not with a paediatrician but a Geiger counter.

"I am so scared about radiation," Misato Nagashima said as she took her baby Rio, born four days after the earthquake and disaster, for a screening at a city in Fukushima prefecture.

Concern over radiation beyond Japan grew further after Singapore detected radiation nine times the limit in cabbages from Japan, while the United States reported "minuscule" levels of radiation in milk samples on its west coast.

Contaminated milk was one of the biggest causes of thyroid cancers after the 1986 nuclear accident in Chernobyl because people near the plant kept drinking milk from local cows.

Several nations have banned milk and produce from areas near the damaged nuclear plant, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo. Japan has itself stopped exports of vegetables and milk there.

While food makes up only 1 percent of Japan's exports, the nuclear emergency poses a risk to an economy burdened with public debt twice the size of its $5 trillion dollar economy and a fast ageing population.

Japan has called on World Trade Organisation nations not to impose "unjustifiable" import curbs on its goods.

LENGTHY BATTLE

Experts say the battle to control Fukushima's six reactors could take weeks, if not months, followed by a clean-up operation that may drag on for years.

Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co could face compensation claims of up to 11 trillion yen (82 billion pounds) -- nearly four times its equity -- if the nuclear crisis drags on for two years, an analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch said.

As operators struggle to regain control of the damaged reactors, nuclear experts said the continued lack of a permanent cooling system was hindering efforts to cool down fuel rods.

Workers have been forced to pump in seawater to cool the rods, but this creates contaminated seawater around the stricken plant and is making it difficult to reconnect the plant's internal cooling system which contains radiation.

Radiation readings around the evacuation zone vary widely.

Daily readings published by the government show that 30 km (19 miles) northwest of the reactors levels are climbing up to 42 microsieverts per hour, about 6 times the cosmic radiation experienced during a Tokyo-New York flight.

Elsewhere at that distance around the reactor it is just 1.0-1.2 microsieverts per hour.

A Reuters reading in downtown Tokyo on Thursday showed a radiation level of 0.18 microsieverts per hour. This is still quite low by global standards as Japan has lower levels of natural background radiation than other places.

(Additional reporting by Chisa Fujioka, Kiyoshi Takenaka and Chizu Nomiyama in Tokyo, Dave Dolan in Fukushima City, Ben Gruber in Koriyama and Sylvia Westall and Fredrik Dahl in Vienna, and Andrew Callus in Geneva; Writing by Michael Perry and Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by John Chalmers, sourced : Reuters)

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Limited access at Japan quake-hit ports, 7 oil terminals shut

Mon Mar 28, 2011 7:21am GMT

* Only 30 pct of shipping berths at quake-hit ports open

* Radiation levels at Tokyo Bay ports remain "very safe"

* Undamaged ports able to absorb lost northeast capacity

By Randy Fabi and Chikako Mogi

SINGAPORE/TOKYO, March 28 (Reuters) - Seven small oil terminals and most of the shipping berths at Japan's northeastern ports remain closed more than two weeks after a devastating earthquake, government and industry officials said.

All 15 key ports damaged by the March 11 disaster have reopened for recovery efforts, Japan's transport ministry said on its website, but access was limited. As of Sunday, only 30 percent of the 208 shipping berths at the facilities were open.

A terminal operated by Mitsubishi Chemical was likely to stay shut for months, while inspections were being conducted at facilities run by Shin Etsu Chemical , Kashima Denkai, Kashima Kyobi and Kashima Oil.

JX Nippon Oil & Energy's terminal at the Port of Sendai and Onahama Petroleum's loading facility at Onahama were also closed and it was not known when operations would resume, maritime firm Inchcape Shipping Services said.

Despite ports reopening, seaborne trade was at a standstill in parts of northeast Japan as shipping companies divert their vessels away from the quake-crippled Fukushima nuclear plant due to radiation fears. [ID:nL3E7EP0DC]

Engineers have been battling to control the six-reactor complex since the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and ensuing tsunami, which left more than 27,000 people dead or missing.

Fires, explosions and radiation leaks have repeatedly forced them to suspend work on averting a catastrophic meltdown at the plant, which lies 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo.

RADIATION FEARS

Radiation levels as of late Sunday in Tokyo Bay ports were below exposure levels the World Health Organisation considered normal, the ministry said.

"Currently, the level of radiation (at ports) in Tokyo City, Yokohama City, Kawasaki City, and Ichikawa City were shown to be at very safe levels to health," it said.

Most shipping companies have limited their exclusion zone from the nuclear plant to around 100 km, halting seaborne trade to the ports of Soma, Onahama and Sendai.

However, at least three container firms -- Germany's Hapag-Lloyd , Claus-Peter Offen and Hong Kong's Orient Overseas Container Line -- have widened their "no-go" area to more than double the industry norm to include Tokyo Bay.

Hapag-Lloyd has diverted a total of 16 vessels from the ports of Tokyo, Nagoya and Yokohama. A spokesman said the world's fifth-biggest container shipper would resume voyages to Nagoya this week.

Orient Overseas has omitted stops at the three ports for six of its shipping lines.

Some industry officials believed the three companies were overreacting and did not see other firms diverting their cargoes away from Tokyo.

China detected what it said were "abnormal" radiation levels on a Mitsui O.S.K. Lines container ship entering the port of Xiamen in eastern Fujian province last week, local media said.
The vessel, MOL Presence, was rejected, said shipbrokers, was on its way back to Japan and was expected to arrive at the port of Kobe on Wednesday.

Japan has hundreds of ports throughout its coastline with enough capacity to absorb vessels avoiding the northeast, industry officials said. (sourced:Reuters)