3/13/2012

474,000 tons of disaster rubble remains piled up in nuke crisis no-go zone

There is still some 474,000 metric tons of earthquake and tsunami debris piled up in coastal areas of the Fukushima nuclear disaster no-go zone, the Environment Ministry announced on March 12.

The debris is contaminated with radioactive cesium from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, with concentrations reaching as high as 58,700 becquerels per kilogram in the town of Okuma, where some of the No. 1 plant's reactors are located. As the toxic debris is inside the nuclear crisis exclusion zone, its disposal is up to the central government, which is moving ahead with plans for sorting facilities and temporary incinerators.

The single largest amount of debris in six coastal municipalities covered in whole or in part by the no-entry zone was in the city of Minamisoma, where some 183,000 tons of rubble remains to be dealt with. Read More

Japan struggles to handle plutonium as fast-breeder reactor project becomes unrealistic

Japan has been fighting an urgent and difficult battle to dispose of accumulated plutonium extracted from spent nuclear fuel as it has become increasingly unrealistic to realize the country's long and expensive fast-breeder reactor project.

One gram of plutonium is said to have energy equal to 1 kiloliter of petroleum. If plutonium is mixed with uranium to create "MOX (mixed-oxide) fuel" and is burned at a fast-breeder reactor, more plutonium is produced than consumed. But now that it has become difficult to realize the government's project to build a fast-breeder reactor that was once dubbed a "dream reactor," Japan has been hard-pressed to dispose of accumulated plutonium.

Japan started the construction of the Monju prototype fast-breeder reactor in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, in 1985, and succeeded for the first time in generating power at the fast-breeder reactor in August 1995. But in December 1995, a fire broke out at the facility when sodium used as coolant leaked out. The operation of the reactor was resumed in 2010, but it has been plagued by a series of problems ever since, and therefore it is extremely difficult to put it into commercial use. Read More

Eric Salvatierra PayPal vice-president dies after being hit by commuter train

A top PayPal executive has been killed after being hit by a commuter train as he stood with his bike on the tracks in California.

The body of Eric Salvatierra, 39, PayPal's vice-president and a married father of three, was identified Sunday by San Mateo County coroner's investigators.

Caltrain, the train operator, said Mr Salvatierra was standing on the northbound tracks on Friday morning in Menlo Park when hit.

An investigation is underway as authorities try to understand why he was on the tracks.

As a father of three girls under the age of 10, family say there wasn't anything that suggested he was suicidal as most cases of train-related deaths are reported. Read More