Young parents moving away from areas near damaged Fukushima plant – ‘I can’t stop thinking about the power plant’

FUKUSHIMA, June 11 (Mainichi Japan) — Young parents are moving away from towns near the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant as areas of high radiation continue to be discovered, raising fears over the effects on young children. Around 50 kilometers northwest of the power plant is Soma city’s Tamano district, located at the foot […]

Water injection failing to cool Fukushima Unit 4 spent fuel storage pool – Wrecked piping delays new cooling plan

June 12 (NHK) – The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has been forced to reconsider its plan to cool the spent fuel storage pool of the No. 4 reactor. Water injection from a special vehicle has not been intense enough to cool the water in the pool, allowing the temperature to remain […]

Sludge from treating contaminated Fukushima water will contain 100 million becquerels per cubic centimeter of radiation

June 10 (Mainichi Japan) – Sludge that will be generated in the process of treating radioactive water at the tsunami-hit Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant is estimated to contain 100 million becquerels of radioactive substances per cubic centimeter, the plant operator said. Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) made the estimation in a report on […]

Radiation in Japan: Date City in Fukushima to fit kindergartners and school kids with dosimeters

By arevamirpal::laprimavera10 June 2011 They’re going to fit 3-year-olds with dosimeters. If the radiation is such a worry, shouldn’t they evacuate small children out of the city first? Or are they planning something else? From Nikkei Shinbun, quoting Kyodo News (6/10/2011): 福島県伊達市は9日、福島第1原発事故で子供がいる親の不安が高まっているとして、市内の小中学校と幼稚園、保育園に通う児童、生徒、園児約8千人全員に小 型線量計を配布すると発表した。7月上旬にも始める方針。福島県内では、町の一部が計画的避難区域となっている川俣町も小中学生と園児1500人全員に近 く線量計を配布する予定。 Date City in Fukushima Prefecture announced on June 9 that they […]

Radiation in Fukushima Unit 3 reactor too high for work – Basement full of radioactive water

June 10 (NHK) – The operator of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant says radiation levels in one of the reactor buildings remain too high for workers to do their jobs. Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, sent 9 workers into the No.3 reactor building for about 20 minutes on Thursday, in a bid to […]

FAO: Climate change will have major impacts on water for farming

Contact: George KourousFAO Media Relations (Rome)(+39) 06 570 53168(+39) 348 141 6802george.kourous@fao.org 9 June 2011, Rome – Climate change will have major impacts on the availability of water for growing food and on crop productivity in the decades to come, warns a new FAO report. Climate Change, Water, and Food Security is a comprehensive survey […]

World Bank forecasts slowdown in global growth as rising commodity prices hit poorest nations

By Larry Elliott, economics editor, www.guardian.co.uk 8 June 2011 A fresh surge in oil prices and a rise in the cost of food pose the biggest threats to the recovery of poor countries from the global recession of 2008 and 2009, according to the World Bank. In its latest economic health check, the Washington-based Bank […]

Europe prays for rain as drought worsens – Danube river level falls to 100-year low

By Peggy Hollinger in Paris, Chris Bryant in Vienna, and Gerrit Wiesmann in BerlinJune 8 2011 Europe is in the grip of a new north-south divide. Yet this time the gap is not about economic competitiveness but rainfall, and it is the north, not the south, that is lagging behind. While southern Europe experienced a […]

Graph of the Day: The Global Agricultural Productivity Gap, 2010-2050

Feeding the world by 2050 will require increasing agricultural output by 70 percent. To achieve this, agricultural productivity will need to grow at an annual average rate of at least 1.75 percent from a relatively fixed bundle of agricultural resources given growing regional scarcities of water and arable land. As noted earlier, over the past […]

Japan government admits failures in Fukushima crisis

By Hidenori Tsuboya and Jin Nishikawa9 June 2011 The Japanese government’s report to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) about the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant catalogues multiple failures at all levels of Japan’s nuclear industry, bureaucracy and government. The report, submitted June 7, lists 28 challenges thrown up by the […]

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