"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

 BBC News - 'Leak risk after explosion at French nuclear plant'

There is a risk of a radioactive leak after a blast at the southern French nuclear plant of Marcoule, media reports say.

One person was killed and three were injured in the explosion, following a fire in a storage site for radioactive waste, Le Figaro newspaper said.

and cia twitter, but grabbed from wrong browser and so lost link

The oven in #Marcoule was used for metalic intermediate level waste melting for reprocessing. It exploded when it was restarted

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

A doctor on site reported that everyone was told to stay inside, don't open windows, and drink or eat nothing.

The report also stated that the site is where plutonium for France's weapons are stored, and where MOx reprocessing occurs.

Not trusted info, but the report featured a French activist who stated there are three "incidents" every day in France. I would not be surprised if almost all were really just technical issues, but does give one pause.

I would be surprised if French authorities were completely forthcoming about the event. This is another reminder that this civilization is not ready to handle such responsibility, in my opinion.

video and german report here

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

Japan Earthquake: nuclear plants - Page 631

Unavailability of measurements has resulted in initiating urgent protection action based on the plant status. The fast changing plant circumstances made it imperative to take several consecutive measures (mostly evacuations) to protect the residents. Long term sheltering was not in line with international practice and has been abandoned and the notions of ―deliberate evacuation‖ and ―evacuation-prepared area‖ were introduced instead.
4 - LESSONS LEARNED _/_/2011 1. Use of long term sheltering (―in-house evacuation‖) was an unusual and not fully justified action that will need further analysis in the future.

UK Government secret documents on the Fukushima Disaster released through freedom of information request.

Guardian Report

Fukushima contingency documents

When I calculated the amounts of cesium in the ~105,000 t of water in TEPCO's data sheet (reactor basements, turbine basements, trenches and rad waste buildings, but not in SPFs), I was amazed at the comparison of the units:

• 1/2 of the cesium is in unit 2 alone
• Another 1/4 of the total is in the central rad waste building, but was mostly pumped out of the #2 basement and trench.
• Almost all of the rest is in unit 3.
• A little more than 1% is in unit 1
• About 0.1 % is in unit 4

That means:

• Unit 2 was 3x as dirty as unit 3
• Unit 3 is 50% bigger and 30x as dirty by volume as unit 1

Aftershocks, explosions hindered N-plant staff : National : DAILY YOMIURI ONLINE (The Daily Yomiuri)

At about 5:30 p.m. on March 12, Yoshida instructed workers to prepare to vent pressure inside the No. 3 reactor. Early in the morning of the next day, workers headed for the reactor's pressure control room, located at the lower part of the containment vessel, to open the valve of the vent.

However, the temperature around the pressure control room was high, as the vent releases high-temperature vapor. Workers also needed to exchange containers of compressed air, which were used to open the valve, in the dark. They were ordered to open and close the valve several times, but various problems interrupted the operations.

Workers had trouble injecting water into the nuclear reactor. They needed to release pressure from the reactor to inject water via a pumper truck, but they could not open the valve after a certain battery ran down.

One of the workers brought the battery from his car to the central control room, and connected it to the instrument panel. This finally allowed the workers to open the vent, release the pressure and inject water into the nuclear reactor.

UK Nuclear Support 'Rises After Fukushima'

An opinion poll suggests that support for nuclear power in Britain has increased in the wake of the Fukushima disaster.

In the British Science Association poll, over 40% of respondents said the benefits outweighed the risks.

Researchers believe that worries about future energy security have become far more important in people's minds.

Men were more than twice as likely as women to be in favour of nuclear, the poll suggests.
....

(Shouldn't they have put those monstrous sea walls on the other side of the reactor? - CH)
....
Bucking the trend

While opinion polls in Japan, Germany and Italy have all shown a drop in support for nuclear power following the disaster, Britons seem to be bucking the trend with increasing enthusiasm for the technology.

In 2010, 38% of those polled in the UK believed the benefits of nuclear outweighed the risks; this has increased to 41% today. (Margin of error interpretation alert: CH)

When asked about building new nuclear power stations, support has increased substantially from just 9% in 2005 to 23%.

In the light of the disaster, Professor Bob Cywinski, a nuclear expert from the University of Huddersfield, said the poll findings were unexpected.

"I am surprised that there is still such strong support after Fukushima despite the public misunderstanding and despite the bad publicity."

So, no way on god's green background-irradiated earth could this be spin or even propaganda, dutifully transmitted by the impartial BBC.

Forgetting MOE, we have "support" for the technology growing (but still at far less than half the population) at 40%, highlighted rather than the later stat that only 23% "support" new plants.

We have the expert claiming that the Fukushima disaster was "bad publicity," and that the public doesn't understand something. And that 23% is "strong support" for both experts (one from U of Huddleston no less) seems to indicate the batteries are low on one's calculator, if not in the other's brain.

And thankfully, Professor Pidgeon (Carrier?) let's us know the reason, because for the past five years, climate change has "gone off people's radar." As far as I knew, most people don't even have radar.

Yo BEEB, that still means that 77% of Brits don't support new plants, not all that far from the percentage in Germany.

We now return you to your regular installment of feces from Big Brother.

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

At the door a steward bars access unless they can attest to not being against nuclear. "Are you pro or anti-nuclear?" he insists. No "anti-nuclear" media are allowed to cover the public meeting. (See video here, 8.45 in.

The Arte people said they were not anti-nuclear and were allowed in. A professor tells the good people that recent research has shown that the international safety levels are way too high, and that you can take 100 times more without the slightest risk.

NISA press conference 2011.06.24 11:10 http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/15577343 : it is expected that the original primary circuit at the unit 1 SFP cooling system can be reused instead of creating a new one as was previously thought. Tepco provided a report on the safety issues concerning the cover for unit 1 : http://www.meti.go.jp/press/2011/06/...10624005-2.pdf : the roof can bear the weight of 30 cm of snow. The average maximum wind speeds recorded during the past 10 years being 17 m/s, the structure is designed to withstand 25 m/s winds. It is a "C class building" as regards the earthquake safety. 6 air-filtering units with a 10,000m³/h capacity each will be installed, providing a total capacity of 40,000m³/h (4 units are active, 2 spare units are inactive). There will be a nozzle in the roof, that can be used to pour water into the spent fuel pool. Thermometers will measure the air temperature inside the cover. Cameras will watch the spent fuel pool. Radiation sensors and hydrogen sensors will be installed (sensor locations are shown on the figure page 8). The tsunami wall will be completed by the time the cover structure is finished. The cover sheet material respects the relevant fire resistance standard. The roof and panels could be opened for fire-fighting purposes. The walls of the reactor building will be coated with a dust fixating material beforehand. Even if the cover structure collapses, the added weight is not enough to curtail the reactor building's earthquake or wind resistance. The temperature is expected to rise inside the reactor building, and on a case by case basis spot-coolers will be installed. The humidity is not expected to rise because it will be absorbed by the air-filtering system.

Analysis of the spent fuel pool water at reactor 1 is out:

http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushi...10624_02-e.pdf

Numbers are a fair bit lower than for reactor 3 pool ( http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp.../110510e12.pdf )

But way, way higher than for reactor 4 pool ( http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp...s/110509e3.pdf )

http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushi...10630_03-e.pdf

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/science/new...OYT1T00400.htm Parts of the cover structure for unit 1 have arrived at the plant harbour this morning after being brought by boat from Onahama Port. They are two 35 ton concrete foundation stones. They are going to be unloaded by crane.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/2011...003071000.html Tepco wants to calculate by the end of this month an estimation of the radiation emitted by the reactor building(s). The purpose is to be able to compare the figures and measure the effect before and after the cover has been completed.

http://www.nikkei.com/news/category/...08122009000000 3 workers have been sent to hospital today ; 2 are workers in their twenties suffering from hyperthermia, one laying cables at unit 1's turbine building, the other controlling entrance and exit at the West Gate. The third one is a heavy equipment operator working near unit 4 who slipped in a stair.

http://www.nikkei.com/news/category/...08122009000000 Tepco is unveiling a plan to build a new water treatment system to be completed by spring or summer of 2012. The plan is to purify water in each reactor rather than go on sharing the present water treatment facility with its 4 km long pipes. The reactors will require cooling by water injection for years before the fuel can be removed (at Three Mile Island it took 10 years). The present water treatment facility has been designed with a durability of one year.

http://www.jiji.com/jc/c?g=soc_30&k=2011070700396 In a reply to Yukishige Okubo at the Upper House Budget Committee on 7 July, minister Goshi Hosono said there was a plan to introduce Japanese technology led by Toshiba in August to supplement the French/US, Areva/Kurion technology currently used at Fukushima Daiichi. He also insisted that the current facility was a temporary one, while a permanent facility using Japanese technology was being studied in combination with the temporary one.

http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu/fukushima-...10707_03-j.pdf (not yet translated into English) the Decontamination Factor at the Kurion facility has greatly improved. As a result the radiation at the end of the Areva facility is below the detection limit for cesium.

http://www.jiji.com/jc/c?g=soc_30&k=2011070500852 In order to reduce worker exposure, flushing with low contaminated water has been performed since some time ago before replacing the adsorption towers at the Kurion facility, which is done using a crane. To further reduce worker exposure, what is planned is to change the policy to change 2~4 towers every day into 4 towers or so every other day. This has already been tried on 5 July with the replacement of 4 towers at the same time.

http://www.nikkei.com/news/category/...08122009000000 0.13 Bq/cm³ of Cs-134 and Cs-137 is detected again in ground water South East of the Process Main Building, after a number of days below the detection limit. This is thought to be either a consequence of the rain or of moving debris nearby.

http://japanfocus.org/-Sakai-Yasuyuki/3546 (English article) Sakai Yasuyuki, Japan's Decline as a Robotics Superpower: Lessons From Fukushima, The Asia-Pacific Journal, Volume 9, Issue 24, No. 2, June 13, 2011.

Source

PS. This diary topic got no action, but at least the lead Torii Gate photo is beautiful. Hope you all had a chance to click on the link.

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

I don't have anything on the scientific side to contribute, just a comment about how this disaster has touched lives and affected all sorts of people around the world, including me.

Back sometime in the 90s when I was living in the City, I went on a health kick, wanting to know more about nutrition, ingredients, organic products, stuff like that. A number of studies I read at the time claimed that drinking green tea was beneficial because of useful antioxidants, tannins and flavonoids, as well as catechin polyphenols. So, having only to walk a couple of blocks away and I would be in the middle of Japantown, it was no problem getting organic Japanese Sencha green tea, and I got totally hooked on the taste. Besides red wine and a green, slimy concoction that I used to love called Odwalla Superfood, Japanese green tea quickly became a favorite, daily beverage.

Once I moved to Helsinki, one of the first places I sought out was a place to buy Japanese green tea. And then I found Tokyokan in the downtown area, and it became one of my favorite places. A couple years later when I moved to the countryside, the owner, Norio, mailed my regular order of Yuuki Maccha organic green tea to me. Then Fukushima happened, and it no longer seemed smart to down copious amounts of Japanese green tea on a daily basis, or at all.

My addiction proved easier to get over than I thought. Even though I do miss the delicious taste of green tea, I've managed to substitute tea made of nettles instead. In one way this is a good thing, as I can and do grow nettles in the yard, so this is cutting down on the expense. My organic green tea habit was never cheap.

But what I can't stop thinking about is my dearly beloved Tokyokan, and what has happened to them as a result? They can't import product, and who would buy it even if they could? Since I've come to know the owner and the staff on a personal level over the years, this really saddens me. Sure, they sell non-perishable items of a Japanese nature too, but I really don't need more stuff. I wish I could figure out a way to help during what must be a really difficult time for them . . .

One way to help, really the only way I know to help is to buy merchandise. A t-shirt is a good example of wearing/spending money on causes we believe in. I wanted to buy a t-shirt like yours CH, so I stopped by Moshi Moshi's web site to see if I could send them an email about it, but no email or contact info on their site. Sigh!

A 5.3 (preliminary magnitude) earthquake struck the area an hour after the storm center. No comment.

Damn, now we'll have to rethink the load calculations and event chains for those fail-safe nextgen reactors. this is "beginning" to get a "touch" expensive.

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

Tokyo Electric Power Co. will likely cut corporate pension payments and reduce its workforce as part of efforts to raise funds to finance compensation payments for damages caused by the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

TEPCO President Toshio Nishizawa on Tuesday told reporters of the cost-cutting plan after a meeting of a third-party government panel tasked with reviewing the utility's financial situation.

The panel hopes to draw up its report by the end of this month. However, the announcement of the report may be delayed as TEPCO and the panel do not agree on the utility's wish to raise electricity charges.

Bond prices show creditors will have to share the bill for Japan's nuclear crisis after the new minister responsible for power companies said banks should write off some loans to Tokyo Electric Power Co.

Five-year credit-default swaps on the utility, whose Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant was wrecked by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, surged a record 271.9 basis points last week to 887.9 basis points after Yukio Edano repeated calls for investors to help pay for the costs of the disaster, according to CMA. Contracts on the power company are the most expensive relative to global peers since June 28, the data show.

Tokyo Electric, or Tepco, faces compensation claims of as much as 11 trillion yen ($144 billion) after three reactor meltdowns at Fukushima, about 220 kilometers (137 miles) north of Tokyo, and helped tip the world's third-largest economy into recession. Edano, 47, the chief of staff for the previous government, first called in May for banks to forgive some loans made before the quake. He was appointed head of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry on Sept. 12.

"We really have to consider the risk that Edano will push for a loan waiver," said Hiroshi Nakamura, who helps oversee 3.5 trillion yen in assets as general manager of fixed-income investment in Tokyo at Mizuho Asset Management Co. "He shouldn't say anything that might destabilize the market anymore."

A Japanese government survey shows that radioactive iodine emitted from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant spread not only northwestward but also to the south of the plant.

The science ministry sampled soil at 2,200 locations, mostly in Fukushima Prefecture, in June and July, and created a map indicating the extent of the radioactive contamination as of June 14th.

Officials were able to obtain data for iodine 131 at only 400 locations, because of its short half-life of 8 days.

The latest map shows that iodine 131 spread northwest of the plant, just like cesium 137 as indicated on an earlier map. But the substance was also confirmed south of the plant at relatively high levels.

Hydrogen has been detected in a pipe at the No. 1 reactor at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, but there is no possibility it will cause an explosion "in the immediate future," the plant's operator said Friday.

According to Tokyo Electric Power Co., hydrogen of at least 10,000 parts per million was detected at two spots in a pipe passing through the containment vessel on the reactor building's first floor. This concentration was higher than TEPCO had anticipated.

Although TEPCO is not certain how much hydrogen is still inside the vessel, the utility believes it is possible the concentration of the highly flammable gas is higher than had been assumed.

In air and liquid, 10,000 ppm is equivalent to 1 percent. Air containing at least 4 percent hydrogen and 5 percent oxygen is at risk of causing explosion.

TOKYO (Dow Jones)--Rice contaminated with the maximum permissible level of cesium set by the government was detected in a city in Fukushima Prefecture after the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant.

A preparatory test ahead of the official examination of the safety of rice in Nihonmatsu city, about 50 kilometers west of the Fukushima power plant, found that a sample of unharvested rice contained 500 becquerels of cesium per kilogram, an official of Fukushima Prefecture said.

Rice with up to 500 becquerels of cesium per kilogram is considered safe for consumption and shipments of rice exceeding that level are banned under Japanese regulations.

The cesium level found in the rice sample in Nihonmatsu is the highest since the regulations were set in April, and no rice shipments have been banned until now, an official at Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said. Rice with 500 becquerels of cesium per kilogram still can be shipped.

Fukushima is one of seventeen prefectures in eastern Japan that are testing rice for radiation, the ministry's official said.

The integrity of a government panel setting the compensation guidelines for damage from the Fukushima nuclear accident is being questioned amid revelations two members accepted monthly payments from a research institute with close ties to the electric power industry.

The payments amounted to 200,000 yen ($2,600) each time.

The government screening panel on disputes over compensation for nuclear accidents has been compiling guidelines for the compensation to be paid by Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

The whiff of scandal will cast doubt on whether the panel can remain neutral as it seeks to resolve compensation disputes that arise between TEPCO and disaster victims.

The nine-member panel was established on April 11 and is overseen by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.

The UN atomic agency said Monday it was hoping to send in early October a team of experts to assist in making safe "properly" the area around Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant.

"Japan does not have that much experience in decontamination," International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director general Yukiya Amano, himself Japanese, told reporters at the UN body's Vienna headquarters.

"They have had small accidents but they have never had an accident this big, so we can provide assistance. Even though they have some ideas, we can provide confidence and credibility," he said.

"For many countries, for the engineers, what is going on in the reactor is the main issue of interest. But for the local people the most important is what happens with their house or rice field. We need to decontaminate."

A government panel says Tokyo Electric Power Company was unprepared for the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant and failed to take steps to minimize the damage.

The panel investigating the accident held its third meeting on Tuesday. It met behind closed doors, saying that allowing media access would negatively affect its interviews with the plant's staff.

Panel leader Yotaro Hatamura told reporters after the meeting that they are looking into whether Tokyo Electric was ready to protect the plant from tsunami and other severe accidents.

One month ago, with the nation's top political post within his grasp, Yoshihiko Noda sided with those who sought to lessen Japan's dependence on nuclear power generation.

His stance helped him defeat rivals in the election for president of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, which automatically led to his becoming prime minister. To all appearances, Noda seemed determined to follow the policy of his predecessor, Naoto Kan.

And then, inexplicably to some, he radically altered his position on the issue and made clear that energy based on nuclear power was the best way forward for Japan.

In a news conference held immediately after he became prime minister, Noda made clear he favored Kan's policy of not relying on nuclear power generation to light Japan's towns and cities and keep its industries running.

Before long, however, Noda had a change of heart and embraced nuclear power generation.

The cost of decontamination work and the disposal of rubble tainted with radioactive materials from the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant is expected to top 1 trillion yen, the Environment Ministry disclosed on Sept. 29.

Based on its projections, the ministry will seek 453.6 billion yen in related expenses in its fiscal 2012 budget request. The costs do not include the maintenance of interim storage facilities for contaminated soil and waste, or measures to treat areas with highly concentrated radiation, and officials say it is possible that in the future costs could run several trillion yen higher.

The Environment Ministry is including decontamination and disposal-related funding for other ministries in its requests. In the fiscal 2012 budget, the ministry will seek 374.4 billion yen for decontamination work, 77.2 billion yen for the disposal of contaminated waste, and 2 billion yen for research and examination of interim storage facilities.

TOKYO -- A limited amount of plutonium has been detected in soil outside Japan's troubled Fukushima nuclear power plant which was crippled by the March 11 quake-tsunami disaster, the government said Friday.

It was the first time plutonium had been found in government tests outside the plant, presumably due to the nuclear accident, the worst since 1986 Chernobyl, the education and science ministry said in a statement.

Plutonium was detected in soil at six places in a survey which was conducted in June in an area within 80 kilometres (50 miles) from the Fukushima Daiichi plant, the ministry said.

Nuclear reactors at the plant suffered meltdowns after cooling systems there were knocked out by the double disasters. Plutonium has been already detected in the plant's compound, some 220 kilometres from Tokyo.

The highest density of plutonium-239 and 240 -- 4.0 becquerels per square metre -- was registered in a town some 30 kilometres from the plant, the ministry said.

The Japanese government on Friday lifted its advisory for residents living in areas between 20 and 30 kilometers from the Fukushima Daiichi power plant to evacuate due to the nuclear crisis at the plant, scaling down the evacuation zone five months after its designation.

''This is major progress following the nuclear accident, and we will support residents' steady and safe return,'' nuclear disaster minister Goshi Hosono said in announcing the decision reached during a government meeting to discuss measures to deal with the world's worst nuclear accident in 25 years.

Efforts to decontaminate land polluted with radioactive substances and restoration of infrastructure are expected to proceed to pave the way for the actual return of around 26,000 people who are currently staying outside the so-called Evacuation-Prepared Area in Case of Emergency.

Fairly high levels of accumulated radioactive cesium in Chiba and Saitama prefectures were shown in a new contamination map released by the science ministry on Sept. 29.

The two prefectures, neighboring the municipal areas of Tokyo, are located about 200 kilometers from the disabled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. The measurements for Chiba and Saitama prefectures were taken from Sept. 8 to Sept. 12 using helicopters.

In Chiba Prefecture, the highest levels of cesium-137, between 30,000 and 60,000 becquerels per square meter, were detected in northern areas, such as Kashiwa, Matsudo, Abiko and Nagareyama. Cesium-137 has a half-life of 30 years.

In Saitama Prefecture, some mountainous areas of Chichibu, located 250 km from the plant, recorded 30,000 to 60,000 becquerels per square meter.

In the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident, areas with 37,000 becquerels or more of radioactivity per square meter were designated contaminated zones, while levels of 555,000 becquerels or more required forcible relocation.

Plutonium found in several wind directions? Caesium near Tokyo (though in "mild" concentrations from a pro-nuclear perspective)? And so little data from the ocean, even assuming we actually are capable of measuring what's happening there.

I despair.

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

Levels of strontium in soil near the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant are up to six times the highest concentrations deposited in Japan by pre-1980 atmospheric nuclear tests, according to the science ministry.

Official maps of soil contamination by strontium and plutonium were published for the first time on Sept. 30 and reveal that, while concentrations are dwarfed by the radioactive cesium leaked from the stricken plant since March 11, significant quantities are present in some locations.

The survey team collected soil samples within a 100-km radius of the nuclear plant between June 6 and July 8.

The concentrations of different nuclides of strontium and plutonium per square meter were analyzed at 100 locations, including each of the 59 municipalities within an 80-km radius of the plant. Forty-one additional locations within the 20-km no-entry zone were studied.

Government documents show that the operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant predicted in 2008 that a tsunami over 10 meters high could hit the plant, which was only designed to withstand tsunami of 5.7 meters. But it failed to report this to the government until just before the March 11th disaster.

At the request of NHK, the government on Monday released a simulation report by Tokyo Electric Power Company.

TEPCO had predicted that waves between 8.4 and 10.2 meters high could hit all 6 reactors at the plant in the event of an earthquake similar to one that devastated the area in 1896.
But the prediction was not conveyed to the government's nuclear safety agency until March 7th, just 4 days before the plant was crippled by tsunami.

In the report, TEPCO also said it would begin examining the plant's tsunami-resistance measures in April of this year. It said it planned to deal appropriately with the matter by around October of 2012, when academics were expected to review their tsunami evaluations.

TEPCO official Junichi Matsumoto says the company did not feel the need to take prompt action on the estimates, which were still tentative calculations in the research stage.

But a Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency official says it is regrettable that TEPCO did not start work on its tsunami measures right after it made the estimate 3 years ago. He said TEPCO should have called on experts to discuss its calculations in public.

Monday, October 03, 2011 16:46 +0900 (JST) iframe

h/t ceebs

13 Works of Art Made in Rice Fields - Mental Floss

Tokyo Electric Power Co. executives pumped tens of millions of yen in personal donations into Liberal Democratic Party coffers in a campaign apparently backed by the company's political lobbyists, an Asahi Shimbun investigation found.

Although TEPCO's public relations department insists that the company does not encourage the donations, The Asahi Shimbun found that at least 448 of the company's executives donated a total of 59.57 million yen ($777,000) to a political fund-raising arm of the then ruling party between 1995 and 2009.

Sources said TEPCO determined the amounts different ranks of executives should donate, with the chairman and president asked to contribute 300,000 yen, executive vice presidents asked to donate 240,000 yen and managing directors asked to give 120,000 yen.

Senior staff were briefed about donations on taking up new positions and told exactly how much was appropriate for their jobs, the sources said.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. failed to take anti-quake measures on about 600 important pieces of equipment at its Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, even though revised safety guidelines in 2006 required such action.

TEPCO's lax practices were described Oct. 13 at a Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) meeting, in which nuclear experts were questioned. NISA officials said the utility did not conduct strength tests and implement reinforcement work on key equipment, including control rods in the No. 1 to 6 reactors that adjust the nuclear fission process within the reactors.

"TEPCO also did not conduct tests on a large majority of the piping" at the Fukushima No. 1 plant, Masaru Kobayashi, director of the Seismic Safety Office at NISA, said.

After the anti-quake guidelines were revised, TEPCO submitted an interim report to the central government in March 2008 in which it concluded that reinforcement work was not needed. It cited the results of tests on the pressure vessel and other important equipment.