‘Melt-through’ at Fukushima?

 

Govt report to IAEA suggests situation worse than meltdown

Posted 08 June 2011, by Staff, The Yomiuri Shimbun, Daily Yomiuri, yomiuri.co.jp

Nuclear fuel in three reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant has possibly melted through pressure vessels and accumulated at the bottom of outer containment vessels, according to a government report obtained Tuesday by The Yomiuri Shimbun.

A “melt-through”–when melted nuclear fuel leaks from the bottom of damaged reactor pressure vessels into containment vessels–is far worse than a core meltdown and is the worst possibility in a nuclear accident.

The possibility of the situation at the plant’s Nos. 1 to 3 reactors was raised in a report that is to be submitted to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

If the report is released as is, it would be the first official recognition that a melt-through has occurred.

It was revealed earlier that sections of the bottom of the pressure vessels where control rods go through have been damaged. Highly radioactive water from inside the pressure vessels was confirmed to have leaked out of the containment vessels, even outside the buildings that house the reactors.

The report also acknowledges problems with the vertical administrative structure concerning nuclear safety regulations. As a result, the report says, who was responsible for keeping people safe in the event of a nuclear accident was not clear.

The report proposes separating the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency from the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry and making it an independent organization. The report also proposes drastic reform of the nation’s nuclear administration, including the Nuclear Safety Commission.

===

Vessel damaged 5 hours later

The pressure vessel of the No. 1 reactor at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant is believed to have been damaged five hours after the March 11 earthquake, according to an analysis by the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.

The finding differs with a provisional analysis earlier released by plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co., which stated the the pressure vessel was believed to have been damaged 15 hours after the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake.

On Monday, NISA, a nuclear watchdog body run by the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry, disclosed the results of a detailed analysis regarding damage at the Nos. 1 to 3 nuclear reactors at the Fukushima facility. NISA estimates that the No. 2 reactor’s pressure vessel was damaged 80 hours after the disaster. TEPCO’s analysis contends the No. 2 reactor’s pressure vessel was damaged 109 hours after the quake.

According to NISA’s analysis, the No.1 reactor’s core began suffering damage three hours after the earthquake.

The No. 1 reactor’s pressure vessel was damaged at 8 p.m. on March 11, five hours after the earthquake. The No. 2 reactor’s pressure vessel suffered damage at 10:50 p.m. on March 14, while the No. 3 reactor’s pressure vessel suffered damage at 10:10 p.m. on March 14. NISA data showed the pressure vessels at the Nos. 1 and 2 reactors were damaged earlier than TEPCO’s analysis showed.

On the other hand, the No. 3 reactor’s pressure vessel was found to have been damaged 13 hours later than TEPCO’s data showed.

NISA presumed the vessels failed when there was almost no water in the reactor cores of the Nos. 2 and 3 reactors.

(Jun. 8, 2011)

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110607005367.htm

EPA Seeks Expanded Review of Proposed Oil Sands Pipeline

 

 

Posted 07 June 2011, by Elana Schor of Greenwire, The New York Times, nytimes.com

U.S. EPA raised significant concerns today with the environmental effects of a controversial $7 billion pipeline proposal, emboldening the plan’s critics and upping the ante for political clashes over Canadian oil sands crude that risk derailing the project for good.

Green groups and other foes of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would nearly double U.S. imports of Canadian oil sands crude if approved, had looked to EPA for the strongest possible judgment of a supplemental environmental review released by the State Department in April. Those hopes were mostly answered in a letter unveiled today that rates State’s extra review as “insufficient” and asks for more analysis of the emissions, environmental justice and safety impacts of the pipeline.

In her letter to State, EPA enforcement chief Cynthia Giles pointed to last year’s 800,000-gallon oil spill in Michigan in seeking more data on the chemical diluents added to the Canadian crude before its transport in the pipeline — substances whose identity could be considered “proprietary information,” according to the April environmental review.

“We believe an analysis of potential diluents is important to establish the potential health and environmental impacts of any spilled oil, and responder/worker safety, and to develop response strategies,” Giles wrote.

That reference to the 2010 pipeline rupture in Michigan aligns EPA with some of Keystone XL’s most vocal opponents, one of whom contended today that the pipeline is “the next Deepwater Horizon disaster in the making.”

“These [diluents] are going to end up affecting the safety of our communities and the safety of our water and wildlife habitats — we have the right to know what’s in them,” added the National Wildlife Federation’s senior vice president, Jeremy Symons, today regarding the chemicals added to the oil in Keystone XL.

“The only question before the Obama administration is whether this pipeline is in the national interest,” Symons said. “If [Keystone XL's sponsor] won’t even tell us what chemicals are in this pipeline, they shouldn’t get that permit.”

The company aiming to construct the 1,700-plus-mile pipeline, Calgary, Alberta-based TransCanada Corp., challenged conservationists’ arguments that Canadian oil sands crude presents a steeper safety challenge than other fuels now refined in the United States.

“We do not add anything to the crude oil,” TransCanada spokesman Terry Cunha noted via email, pointing to third-party analyses that found sulfur, vanadium and nickel present in Canadian crudes in comparable amounts to Venezuelan, Nigerian and Alaskan counterparts.

“We are still evaluating all of the many additional issues that the EPA letter raises for [State] and we will continue to work with [State] as it proceeds,” Cunha added.

In addition to the questions about chemical diluents in the proposed pipeline, Giles of EPA also asked State to expand its review of how Keystone XL would affect lower-income areas near Gulf Coast refineries — the ultimate destination of its oil sands crude — and wetlands along its six-state route southward.

With respect to the hot-button debate over the increased carbon emissions generated by oil sands crude compared with conventional fuels — a difference that pipeline supporters describe as minimal but critics paint as much higher — EPA asked State to consider mitigation measures that could trim Keystone XL’s greenhouse gas footprint.

“We appreciate your agreement to identify practicable mitigation measures” for the pipeline, including the use of “green power” at its pumping stations and offset work on the Canadian side of the border, Giles wrote to State.

In a separate summary of its comments, EPA wrote that “progress has been made in responding” to its objections to the review of Keystone XL, suggesting that the final environmental impact statement from State could take some of the wind out of green groups’ sails. But Symons and his fellow anti-pipeline campaigners took heart in State’s announcement that a half-dozen public meetings would be held in areas affected by the Keystone XL before the release of a final permitting decision.

“We ask that if it is going to be done, it is done right,” Carl Weimer, executive director of the nonprofit advocacy group Pipeline Safety Trust, told reporters today. “So far, the State Department has not done it right.”

Click here (pdf) to read a copy of EPA’s comments to State concerning Keystone XL.

 

Copyright 2011 E&E Publishing.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/06/07/07greenwire-epa-seeks-expanded-review-of-proposed-oil-sand-60126.html

Planned solar-powered Bainbridge development could be the greenest around

Posted 07 June 2011, by Tristan Baurick, Kitsap Sun, kitsapsun.com

BAINBRIDGE ISLAND — The planned Grow Community will be one of the largest developments the island has seen in decades.

It might also be one of the greenest in the state.

With the goal of drawing all of its power from the sun, the 137-home project is aiming for one of the nation’s first endorsements from the BioRegional Development Group, an international nonprofit that promotes the creation of earth-friendly neighborhoods through its One Planet Communities program.

Grow Community, which is planned for a nearly 8-acre site in downtown Winslow, would be the first project in the state endorsed under the One Planet program.

“This is an ambitious project that has really pushed us to get creative,” said Marja Preston, a planner for the Bainbridge-based Asani development company.

Proposed about a year ago, Asani announced its One Planet goals this week. The project won’t break ground until next year.

The project’s 87 rental apartments and 50 single-family homes will be built with energy and water-efficiency in-mind. The centrally located site will have features that encourage walking, biking and small-scale food production.

The One Planet program has endorsed housing projects in the United Kingdom, Portugal and California, and is working with developers on at least nine new projects in France, South Africa, China and Australia.

An endorsement doesn’t grant tax breaks or any other incentives. All Grow Community will get is One Planet’s stamp of approval.

“But that can help with marketability,” Preston said. “We will be different than anything else on the market.”

While other environmentally sustainable certification programs focus on individual buildings, One Planet takes a broader approach, assessing how a development encourages a more earth-friendly way of life.

The One Planet-endorsed Sonoma Mountain Village in San Francisco, for instance, earned points for its links to a commuter rail line and its five-minute walking distance from a farmers market, thereby promoting the use of local foods. Sonoma Mountain also is outfitted with solar panels and aims to have its residents use 65 percent less municipal water than a typical city resident.

The main idea of One Planet neighborhoods is to reduce each resident’s natural resource consumption, said Geof Syphers, a green building consultant for One Planet’s North American programs.

He said that if each person on the planet ate, drank, drove and produced waste at the same rate as Americans, an additional 4.5 Earths would be needed just to meet demand.

“We, as Americans, are deficit spenders when it comes to natural resources,” he said.

To offset that deficit, Grow Community plans to draw all its energy from on-site and off-site solar panels. Most of the panels would be spread across the development’s roofs. Additional panels could be located elsewhere on the island.

Vehicle parking would be located in consolidated areas away from homes, making residents more likely to use the development’s trail network as their primary means of getting around. The trails, including a main public one, would funnel residents toward Madison Avenue, where a farmers market, a grocery store and various Winslow shops are within easy reach. Only one parking space is planned for each home.

“This is for five-minute living,” Preston said, referring to the time it would take to walk to several downtown destinations.

The L-shaped property stretches along Wyatt Way between the Pavilion commercial complex and Grow Avenue. About 20 homes would be demolished to make way for Grow Community, most of which are ramblers along John Adams Way.

The development’s initial plans include public improvements along Grow and Wyatt, including bike lanes and sidewalks where none currently exists.

Asani is in talks to relocate the 120-student Madrona School into three of the development’s buildings totaling about 20,000 square feet. The private, Waldorf-affiliated school has outgrown its shared location at Eagle Harbor Congregational Church.

“We like the sustainability goals (of the development) because they’re really compatible with a Waldorf education,” said Amanda Sturgeon, a Madrona parent leading the school’s relocation effort.

Grow Community’s many amenities won’t come cheap, but Preston said Asani hopes to balance the project with a price at the lower end of the Bainbridge real estate spectrum. A one-, two- or three-bedroom home could cost anywhere from $250,000 to $390,000.

“Affordability and (population) diversity has been a primary goal from day one,” Preston said.

Asani plans to build four homes by May to test the residential market. Reaction to the four homes will then guide larger building phases, probably beginning near Shepard Way on the site’s south border.

Full build-out could take six years.

Asani owner Bill Carruthers built Winslow’s Vineyard Lane condominium project and the Island Gateway commercial project taking shape on Winslow Way.

Along with the One World endorsement, Grow Community is aiming for the gold level in the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system.

Asani is hoping for a density boost through the city’s Housing Design Demonstration Project, a pilot initiative that allows a zoning upgrade for sustainably-built affordable housing. Grow Community would be the second HDDP development after Ferncliff Village, which breaks ground this month.

Grow Community’s density bonuses would be earned largely through its earth-friendly amenities rather than low-end pricing. The project is not aiming for affordable housing status or public funding.

© 2011 Kitsap Sun.

http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2011/jun/07/planned-solar-powered-bainbridge-development-be/

Speaking out against an unwanted Quebec mine

 

 

Posted 08 June 2011, by Krystalline Kraus, Rabble, rabble.ca

The Algonquin community of Barriere Lake, Quebec, have for weeks been confronting a new threat to their unceded indigenous territory.

Cartier Resources — a Val d’Or based corporation — has begun line-cutting in preparation for its mining exploration. According to its website, the mining company claims that their “100 per cent owned” land base of 439 sq. km boasts rich copper deposits ripe for exploitation.

The question is, owned by who?

Community members and members of the Barriere Lake Solidarity group are concerned, especially with regards to land ownership and the mining ethics, situations that apparently violate international and nation-to-nation protocols for the management of indigenous lands. This includes, for example, the yet-to-be-honoured Trilateral Agreement signed in 1991 between Barriere Lake and the Quebec and Canadian governments, the latest examples of the provincial and federal governments’ long history of not honouring agreements and treaties with First Nations.

Regarding First Nation-to-First Nation solidarity, the community reports, “the workers on site, predominantly Crees from the Mistassini and Oujebougamou First Nations, agreed to leave when the Algonquins travelled to the proposed mine location and explained their opposition to the development.”

The Mitchikanibikok’inik Council of Elders sent a letter on May 2 behalf of the community to MPs Nathalie Normandeau (Minister of Natural Resources and Wildlife), Geoffrey Kelley (Minister of Native Affairs) and Serge Simard (Delegate Minister for Natural Resources), stating their strong stance against resource development in the area until certain agreements — including as the Trilateral Agreement of 1991– are honoured.

The commitment to resistance from the community is clear: “under these circumstances, any attempts at natural resource exploitation within the Trilateral Agreement Territory will be viewed by our First Nation as a breach of the 1991 Trilateral Agreement and the 1998 Bilateral Agreement, as well as, a violation of the government’s duty to consult and to accommodate.”

This is not the first time the Algonquins of Barriere Lake have stood up to defend the land from resource extraction. The impact of logging within the territory came to the world’s attention since the late 1980s and early 1990s. At the time, Chief Harry Wawatie warned that “Quebec’s decision to unilaterally move ahead with cutting permits in the territory of the Algonquins of Barriere Lake will plunge the region into a logging crisis.”

Traditional governance vs. the Indian Act

The Barriere Lake community states it has not been properly consulted (and represented) when it comes to the Québec government’s mining interests in the area.

Currently governed by a band council implemented under a Federal Indian Act provision not employed since 1924, it has used Section 74 to remove the community’s traditional governing system called the “Mitchikanibikok Anishinabe Onakinakewin.” Section 74 was implemented by the Minister for Indian Affairs on April 8, 2011. The Section 74 council is currently without its chief who resigned in protest after being nominated.

Community resistance to this Indian Act-imposed council is strong. A letter by the Mitchikanibikok’inik Council of Elders, representing the will of the community, states: “We do not accept the illegitimate DIA (Department of Indian Affairs) imposed Section 74 council (Hector Jerome, Anida Decoursay, Chad Thusky, Steve Wawatie), nor, will our people be bound by any decision they purport to make on behalf of our First Nation. We will oppose and resist any and all efforts by the federal and/or Quebec governments to legitimize or use the DIA imposed Section 74 council as our First Nation’s purported representatives.”

It is this appointed Section 74 council that the government has been negotiating with in regards to any mineral exploration and extraction in the area; effectively bypassing the wider community in order to step out of previously signed agreements of 1991 and 1998.

The letter further states, “to avoid their obligations, the federal government has deliberately violated our leadership customs by ousting our Customary Chief and Council.” The community thus does not feel it is being properly consulted regarding what happens on their territory.

Norman Matchewan, spokesperson for the Algonquins of Barriere Lake, commented, “In what amounts to a coup d’etat, they are recognizing a Chief and Council rejected by a community majority. The Quebec government is cooperating with the federal government because they are using the leadership issue as an excuse to bury the 1991 and 1998 Agreements they signed with our First Nation.”

Community members currently refuse to be bullied by both the federal and provincial governments through the implementation of what they consider to be an illegitimate and colonial governing system and a backhanded way to impose the economic will of governments and corporations at the expense of the people and the land.

Resistance has been fertile with letter writing campaigns and highway blockades, made easier by the closeness of the community of 500, situated 300 km north of Ottawa. These are people who have kept to long-held traditions and speak Algonquin as their first language.

According to First Nations ally Corvin Russell, “the Algonquins of Barriere Lake have survived as an Aboriginal culture because of a determination to hold on to their identity, and to preserve their relationship to their traditional lands, which provide them life and sustenance.”

This Algonquin Territory is considered as unceded according to British Common Law, so it is for this reason that any relationships or negotiations with the federal or Quebec government are considered nation-to-nation since the Algonquins of Barriere Lake consider themselves to be a nation in their own right. The federal and Quebec governments need to heed this and should act as prescribed under the jurisdiction of the United Nations Declaration of Indigenous Rights (UNDRIP), which Canada signed in 2010.

Accorded under UNDRIP is the right for indigenous peoples to have control “over developments affecting them and their lands, territories and resources will enable them to maintain and strengthen their institutions, cultures and traditions, and to promote their development in accordance with their aspirations and needs.”

The government of Canada and Quebec are not fulfilling this obligation if there is such documented resistance against the Section 74 Council and any extractive industry projects. In fact, the conduct of they are behaving contrary to the spirit of the UN resolution. But they can get away with it. Unfortunately, this declaration is not binding.

While the Barriere Lake community of northern Quebec is small, and the struggle against the federal and Quebec government a David vs. Goliath battle (or a Windigo vs. community battle), the solid traditions and steadfast resistance towards colonialism and environmental degradation forms the strong heart of this community.

The Algonquins are clearly saying that it is not the federal or Quebec government that speaks for them, but the Algonquins themselves.

Krystalline Kraus writes the Activist Communique for rabble.ca.

 

http://rabble.ca/news/2011/06/speaking-out-against-unwanted-quebec-mine