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Workers at the tsunami-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan are trying to fix a crucial part of the plant that stopped working today. The system that cools hundreds of spent fuel rods that are stored at the facility has stopped working, which could have dangerous consequences, CBC News producer Craig Dale has learned. The Tokyo Electric Power Company confirmed that it had a partial power failure Monday evening and then discovered the problem with an electricity supply unit. Currently the cooling systems in reactors one, three and four are not operational and representatives from TEPCO are unsure how to...

Even the tiniest mistake during an operation to extract over 1,300 fuel rods at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan could lead to a series of cascading failures with an apocalyptic outcome, fallout researcher Christina Consolo told RT. Fukushima operator TEPCO wants to extract 400 tons worth of spent fuel rods stored in a pool at the plant’s damaged Reactor No. 4. The removal would have to be done manually from the top store of the damaged building in the radiation-contaminated environment. In the worst-case scenario, a mishandled rod may go critical, resulting in an above-ground meltdown releasing...

Fukushima nuclear plant operator Tepco on Monday admitted for the first time that radioactive groundwater is flowing into the sea, fueling fears that marine life is being poisoned. The admission came a day after voters handed the largely pro-nuclear Liberal Democratic Party of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe — and ally New Komeito — a handsome majority in the Upper House. Earlier this month, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said groundwater samples taken at the battered plant showed that levels of cesium-134 had shot up more than 110 times in a few days. Although unable to explain the increased readings, Tepco had...

ENENEWS.COM has published the following excerpt from WSJ: In a stunning reversal, the operator of Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi power plant admitted for the first time Friday that it had made errors of judgment that contributed to one of the world’s worst nuclear accidents last year. [Tepco] said in a report that the company failed to adequately prepare for a disaster and that it knew it wasn’t prepared, and yet it did nothing, out of fear for the economic and social consequences.

Full Title: Fukushima Reactor 3 Explosion, Reactor 2 Core Melt, Possibly Because TEPCO Couldn't Break the Rules to Bring Batteries to the Plant What rules, you ask? Good social rules like "If you want something from a store, you purchase it with money." Or "In order to transport potentially dangerous materials or equipments, you apply for a government permit and wait until the permit is issued." They are all good and proper in peacetime. TEPCO was no longer in peacetime, starting March 11, 2011. But the company and the workers clearly didn't know how to operate in an extraordinary situation...

We noted in August that some parts of Tokyo have more radiation than existed in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zones. And see this and this. There are indications that radiation levels are increasing in Tokyo. Nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen took 5 random soil samples in Tokyo recently, and found that all 5 were so radioactive that they would be considered radioactive waste in the United States, which would have to be specially disposed of at a facility in Texas:

How the Yakuza went nuclear What really went wrong at the Fukushima plant? One undercover reporter risked his life to find out By Jake Adelstein 11:30AM GMT 21 Feb 2012 /snip Tepco has long been a scandal-ridden company, caught time and time again covering up data on safety lapses at their power plants, or doctoring film footage which showed fissures in pipes. How was the company able to get away with such long-standing behaviour? According to an explosive book recently published in Japan, they owe it to what the author, Tomohiko Suzuki, calls “Japan’s nuclear mafia… A conglomeration of corrupt...

52 Workers at TEPCO Nuclear Plant Infected with Norovirus Tokyo, Dec. 17 (Jiji Press)--A total of 52 workers at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s <9501> crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant have been infected with norovirus, the utility said Saturday. The workers, who are employees of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. <7011> and affiliated companies, were installing storage tanks for sludge accumulated after radioactive water decontamination. Some of them was hospitalized but most are getting better after receiving treatment. The number of patients may increase further, according to the plant operator, known as TEPCO. According to TEPCO, the workers reported symptoms...

TEPCO: Radioactive substances belong to landowners, not us By TOMOHIRO IWATA / Asahi Shimbun Weekly AERA During court proceedings concerning a radioactive golf course, Tokyo Electric Power Co. stunned lawyers by saying the utility was not responsible for decontamination because it no longer "owned" the radioactive substances. “Radioactive materials (such as cesium) that scattered and fell from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant belong to individual landowners there, not TEPCO,” the utility said. That argument did not sit well with the companies that own and operate the Sunfield Nihonmatsu Golf Club, just 45 kilometers west of the stricken TEPCO plant...

Photos released by TEPCO show huge piles of used radioactive gear Photos released by the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) show huge piles of plastic bags containing used radioactive gear and other radioactively contaminated waste at a facility near the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant. The photos show a vast number of bags piled about five meters tall. According to TEPCO, there are currently around 4,000 cubic meters of the waste piled up. The photos are two of 32 released by TEPCO on Oct. 15 and were taken at J-Village, a sports facility serving as a base of operations...

Residents furious over 60-page application, 160-page manual for TEPCO compensation Residents affected by the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant are furious after learning they will have to wade through a 60-page application form -- accompanied by a 160-page manual -- to seek compensation from the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO). The company, which on Sept. 12 started sending out documents for individual compensation claims for the period between March and August, says its careful explanation of the process resulted in a large amount of documentation. However, this hasn't appeased residents. "One can only assume...

TEPCO to directly pour water to No.3 reactor fuel Tokyo Electric Power Company will try a new process to cool down the No.3 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant by injecting water directly onto the facility's fuel starting on Friday. The utility has been pouring 7 tons of water from outside the No.3 reactor every hour. But this process has been producing a massive amount of high-level radioactive water. TEPCO said on Monday that injecting cooling water through pipes situated above the fuel would be a more efficient operation. The utility hopes this new process will reduce the...

Return our dogs, TEPCO demands From: The Australian June 28, 2011 12:00AM A MAN who snatched two dogs to safety from the grounds of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has revealed the plant's disgraced operator TEPCO later rang him to assert ownership over them. The Australian yesterday revealed the story of animal rescue "guerilla" Hiroshi Hoshi's mission to the plant to grab two Japanese Shiba dogs spotted wandering around on a webcam trained on the facility. Yesterday, Mr Hoshi said one of the plant's managers, who called himself Mr Igarashi, made a "ghoulish and bizarre" phone call to...

TEPCO halts water circulation due to leaks The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has suspended using decontaminated water as a coolant because of leaky pipes. Tokyo Electric Power Company began circulating recycled water through the No.1, 2 and 3 reactors at 4:20 PM on Monday. But it halted the operation one and a half hours later after discovering water leaking from the pipes. TEPCO has been attempting to run the decontamination system since June 14th. It has so far treated about 1,850 tons of the water. The operator hopes to reduce the levels of radioactive wastewater accumulated...

TEPCO says contaminated water may overflow Tokyo Electric Power Company says that, in a worst case scenario, highly radioactive water may overflow from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant as early as June 20th. The company is set to start operating filters for highly radioactive water from June 15th. However, it warns that if the filtering does not go to plan, highly radioactive water may overflow from a tunnel at the Number 2 reactor. TEPCO says that by May 31st, 105,100 tons of waste water had accumulated. It contains an estimated 720,000 terabecquerels of radioactive substances. Tera stands for one trillion....

Tokyo Electric to Halt Toxic Water Transfer for Weeks Fukushima, May 23 (Jiji Press)--Tokyo Electric Power Co. <9501> will suspend for weeks the transfer of highly radioactive water from two nuclear reactors to waste disposal facilities at the Fukushima No. 1 plant. The disposal facilities will reach their storage limits within days, but equipment to clean up the contaminated water will not start operating until mid-June, company officials said. Tokyo Electric has been collecting highly radioactive water that leaked from the No. 2 and No. 3 reactors into nearby facilities including the basements of the reactor turbine buildings. At present,...

The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says workers may have manually shut down the No.1 reactor's emergency cooling system in order to prevent damage to the reactor. It says pressure inside the reactor had dropped sharply after the earthquake struck the plant on March 11th. Tokyo Electric Power Company on Monday disclosed records of its operations at the plant. They show that the reactor automatically halted operations after the earthquake. The emergency cooling system was automatically activated but stopped about 10 minutes later and remained off for about 3 hours until after the tsunami arrived. TEPCO says...

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) admitted for the first time on May 15 that most of the fuel in one of its nuclear reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant had melted only about 16 hours after the March 11 earthquake struck a wide swath of northeastern Japan and triggered a devastating tsunami.

TEPCO to move radioactive water from No.3 reactor The operator of the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says it will start transferring highly radioactive water from the No.3 reactor building to a temporary storage facility as early as Tuesday. Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, estimates that there is about 22,000 tons of highly radioactive water in the reactor's turbine building and in a connecting tunnel. The utility says the water in the basement of the turbine building was about 1.4 meters high as of Monday morning, a rise of more than 20 centimeters over the past 2 weeks....

Tokyo Electric Power Co. concealed data showing spikes in radiation levels at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in March, one day before a hydrogen explosion injured seven workers. The Asahi Shimbun obtained a 100-page internal TEPCO report containing minute-to-minute data on radiation levels at the plant as well as pressure and water levels inside the No. 3 reactor from March 11 to April 30. The data has never been released by the company that operates the stricken plant. The unpublished information shows that at 1:17 p.m. on March 13, 300 millisieverts of radiation per hour was detected inside...