- The schedule for the full power operation of Oi unit #3 has been set back a full day. On Tuesday, turbine testing began, but it took longer to complete than anticipated. It is now expected that low power operation will begin Thursday, with a small amount of electricity being generated. Connection to the national grid will follow. A slow, sequential process of increasing electrical output will culminate in full electrical output by Sunday. (NHK World)
- Sunday’s antinuclear rally outside the Oi facility is now estimated to have drawn 650 demonstrators. Many protestors feared the restart could signal a virtual flood of nuke resumptions. Ikuyo Hattori, who came with her two children, said “If the reactor is reactivated . . . other reactors will be restarted in quick succession. We can’t accept a forcible restart when the Fukushima crisis hasn’t been settled.” Meanwhile, organizers of last weekend’s Tokyo demonstration have inflated their attendance estimates to 180,000. The Metropolitan Police estimate remains unchanged at 20,000. No explanation by the protest organizers has been given for the great disparity in estimates. (Japan Times)
- The Ministry of the Environment has announced that some freshwater fish have higher Cesium-137 levels than sea fish. The highest level was one freshwater goby with a level of 2,600 Becquerels/kg. Flounder and Sea Bass caught off Fukushima Prefecture have shown levels between 330 and 670 Bq/kg. The Ministry assumes the differences between freshwater and sea fish is because sea fish excrete salt from their systems and take Cesium with it since it is chemically similar to Potassium. (NHK World) Comment – what is not mentioned in the news report is that the naturally occurring level of radioactive Potassium-40 is 1000-1500 Bq/kg in sea fish. While the one Goby had Cs-137 ~2 times the naturally occurring K-40 level, the report should publish the comparative numbers. Naturally occurring Cs-137 levels are about 1.6-3.5 Bq/kg, so the news media should refer to it as an “elevated” level, but not a high level which makes it sound dangerous.
- The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) wants additional studies on the fault fracture zones near three nuclear power stations. The three are Kansai Electric’s Mihama and Takahama stations, and Japan Atomic’s Monju fast breeder facility. NISA says particular attention will be given the Mihama and Monju stations because nearby multiple fracture zones might move in concert and amplify seismic shocks. (Kyodo News)
- Conditions have been set for membership in Japan’s forthcoming nuclear regulatory commission. The commission will have a chairman and four “experts”. The government decided to use stricter selection requirements than the new law calls for. Members of the commission are required to disclose the amounts of donations that went toward their personal research or to a laboratory to which they belong from companies related to the nuclear industry for the three years previous to the commission being established. None may have been an employee or executive with any utilities, reactor makers or other nuclear-related businesses in the past 3 years. Also ruled out are individuals who have received more than $6,000 per year from lectures, consultancy or other services from a single power firm in the three years prior to appointment. If someone is a university professor, he/she must disclose names of industry-related companies that hired students out of their laboratories and the number hired in the previous three years. These restrictions are intended to promote the impression of independence sought by the Diet. (NHK World; Yomiuri Shimbun)
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