Blew up right in front of me on page A6 of my Boston Globe:
"Japanese regulators OK restart of two nuclear reactors" by Anna Fifield | Washington Post July 17, 2014
TOKYO — Japanese authorities have declared that two nuclear reactors meet new standards put in place after the 2011 Fukushima disaster and are safe enough to be restarted, paving the way for the revival of the country’s atomic energy industry.
As Japan swelters through another summer of electricity conservation and bills for expensive gas and coal imports, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been pressing for an end to the nuclear shutdown imposed after an earthquake and tsunami caused a catastrophic meltdown at the Fukushima power plant.
Somehow that catastrophe seems to have all been forgotten.
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The report said the coastal Sendai plant met new safety standards designed to protect against threats ranging from terrorist attacks to tsunamis like the one that led to the meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi plant on the east coast of central Japan, the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986.
We were told the same thing before the "accident."
The reactors will not be switched on just yet, though. Authorities will now start a month of public consultation, and local authorities will also have a say, although local opposition is relatively low thanks to the economic benefits that the plant brings. Both the prefecture governor and the mayor of the closest town are in favor of a restart.
I think I am going to be sick, and it is not from radiation.
What pos AmeriKan media outlet wrote this?
‘‘This looks like a trial balloon,’’ said James Brown, an energy expert at Temple University’s Japan campus in Tokyo. ‘‘They have chosen the plant that is most likely to be approved by the local community’’ before the government presses ahead with other plants.
Just popped.
But foes of nuclear energy in earthquake-prone Japan are likely to become even more vociferous over the next month.
I'm just tired of the $elective terminology and word choices of my rot gut propaganda pre$$. Sorry.
In Tokyo’s government district, where protesters have been voicing their opposition to nuclear power at a tent encampment since the Fukushima accident, there was dismay on Wednesday.
What, what, what? An OCCUPY JAPAN for THREE YEARS RUNNING and NOT MUCH MADE OF IT at all? Oooooooh!
I blew that up because I thought those were important phrases in the sentence.
‘‘This decision is stupid,’’ said Kyoko Minoguchi. ‘‘Sendai is in a volcano and earthquake area, so it’s really dangerous,’’ she said, cooling herself with a paper fan that read ‘‘no nuclear waste, no energy shift.’’
Government $tooges never learn, do they?
Sakurajima, an active volcano, is about 30 miles from the Sendai plant. It currently carries a level-three warning from the Japan Meteorological Agency, meaning that people are advised against going near it.
But
No, sorry, there are NO BUTS HERE!
Yoshihide Suga, Abe’s chief Cabinet secretary, said the regulators are enforcing what are now the toughest nuclear safety regulations in the world....
Soviets boasted they had the toughest and look what happened there.
The Fukushima disaster led to a sharp slide in public support for nuclear power.
But?
A survey conducted by Kyodo News last month found that more than half of respondents remained opposed to restarting the nuclear plants.
Japan is a democracy, right?
Nine of Japan’s electric utility companies have applied to restart 19 reactors, and Wednesday’s decision could help expedite applications for five other similar plants.
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Nothing about the 300 tons of radioactive water going into the Pacific every day.
Where you gonna store all the waste from the restarted plants?
"Underground lab tackles Japan nuclear waste issue" by Mari Yamaguchi | Associated Press July 15, 2014
HORONOBE, Japan — Reindeer farms and grazing Holstein cows dot a vast stretch of rolling green pasture on Japan’s northern tip. Underground, it’s a different story.
Workers and scientists have carved a sprawling laboratory deep below this dairy town that, despite government reassurances, some of Horonobe’s 2,500 residents fear could turn their neighborhood into a nuclear waste storage site.
Good thing the Japanese people and Asians in general are passive and obedient to authority, 'eh?
‘‘I’m worried,’’ said 54-year-old reindeer handler Atsushi Arase. ‘‘If the government already has its eye on us as a potential site, it may eventually come here even if we refuse.’’
They are there to help and protect you because they love you.
Japanese utilities have more than 17,000 tons of ‘‘spent’’ fuel rods that have finished their useful life but will remain dangerously radioactive for thousands of years.
Not counting the exposed rods at Fukushima?
What to do with them is a vexing problem that nuclear-powered nations around the world face, and that has come to the fore as Japan debates whether to keep using nuclear energy after the 2011 disaster at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima plant.
The answer to that problem may lie in the Horonobe Underground Research Center, which has been collecting geological data to determine if and how radioactive waste can be stored safely for as long as 100,000 years in a country that is susceptible to volcanic activity, earthquakes, and shifting underground water flows.
I'm already not liking this idea. It's as dumb as the ice wall.
Several journalists donned hard hats and crammed into a mesh elevator for a 1,150-foot descent to reach the laboratory.
They got a propaganda tour, huh?
They emerged in a 2,500-foot-long tunnel cut in the shape of a figure 8, its bare wall showing 3-million-year-old sedimentary layers. Dripping water formed puddles on the ground. Dozens of cables and gauges connected to biscuit-size holes in the wall were analyzing the composition and movement of ground water and other data around the clock.
In return for hosting the research, which under an agreement with the Japan Atomic Energy Agency does not involve any radioactivity, Horonobe has received about $10 million in government subsidies and tunnel-related public works projects since 2000, according to town statistics.
Officially, this is only a test. But as with America’s doomed Yucca Mountain project, finding a community willing to host a radioactive dump site is proving difficult, even with a raft of financial enticements. One mayor expressed interest in 2007, and was booted from office in the next election.
Related: New Mexican Post Was Missed
Kazuhiko Shimizu, the underground lab’s director general, noted that Horonobe is distant from potential risks, and data samples have so far indicated it might work as a storage site. Exploring an alternative location would take another 20 years, he added.
Might?
‘‘It’s a project that takes a lot of time and effort just to get started,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s not easy.’’
That's why nuclear plants should not be started. Too bad the directors of the world wasted all the money on banking swindle schemes and wars instead of developing good, renewable, clean energy.
That kind of thinking makes locals fear they have made a deal with the devil.
At least you know him, right?
‘‘There is no guarantee this test site won’t turn into a final repository,’’ said 60-year-old dairy farmer Satoshi Sumi. A move by France to convert its test site into a final depository makes him nervous. ‘‘I’ve been skeptical about the agreement and I still am.’’
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"Japan to export missile parts to US" Associated Press July 18, 2014
TOKYO — Japan has approved the export of a component for a missile defense system to the United States and is launching joint research with Britain on air-to-air missile technology for fighter jets.
The beginning steps of rebuilding the Japanese empire.
The approval late Thursday marks the first defense technology transfer since Japan eased military export rules in April. The policy change, which reverses Japan’s 1967 self-imposed ban on arms exports under its war-renouncing constitution, comes as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government tries to give Japan a more assertive defense posture.
Under the approval, made by the National Security Council, Japan’s major defense contractor, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., will be allowed export its seeker gyro, a component for surface-to-air missile defense systems, to US defense equipment maker Raytheon Co. The gyro is a sensor that is used to identify, track, and chase targets.
Related: The Biggest Gun Dealers on Planet Earth
Raytheon a key in Israeli defense plan
Who is benefiting from the wars again?
Separately, the government also gave a green light to Japan’s joint research with Britain using Japanese seeker technology.
Time for me to go.
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