3/10/11 Hawaii Tsunami Warning

[JERRY2KONE]

This was the first positive report I have read on this matter since it first began. According to Tepco they have laid out a nine month long plan that in the end will allow them to reach a complete cold shutdown of the entire plant. It started this morning with them completing a temporary storage facility for pumping out contaminated water from the plant and ciculating it into a cooling pond. This will allow them to get back into the basement of one of the reactors to make repairs to the first stage cooling system in order for them to get that system back on line soon. Once this is accomplished they can return to cooling the ractors and begin reducing the temps to a point where high levels of radiation is no longer being released.

Once they get to that phase they can begin removing the rods and radioactive material from the cores one by one, and placing it into a safe zone. Once all of the material is removed they will beging the long process of clean up and permanant shutdown of the plant. From the sounds of it they have no intentions of rebuilding this plant or replacing it any time soon. Once this level is reached they will allow people to return to their homes in the area and begin rebuilding their lives.

I am sure that there will be a very large study and long term reorganization of these nuclear plants across Japan in order to make sure nothing like this ever happens again. They admit that there is a lot of improvements and redesigning that needs to be done in order to make these plants safe and avoid any further disasters down the road. I hope that this incident moves other countries to do the same.

[JERRY2KONE]

It was great to hear some good news coming out of Japan these days after such devistation. Lito we are all happy that you and your family are back together and safe from harm. Please share with your family that our hearts have been with you through all of this, and that we wish you nothing but the best over the next year during your transition from Naval life to civilian life.

Today an update was televised stating that things are finally begining to look a whole lot brighter. Thur/05/05/2011 it was reported that cooling continues and that progress has been made. Also stated was that they have been able to enter one of the reactor buildings for the first time in many weeks in order to do some up close observations and strategic planning for the next phase of their plan. The plan at this point is to recover/rebuild the entire designed cooling system so that it can be put back in operation in order to bring the temperature of the reactor cores to a point which will allow them to enter the facilities and remove the fuel rods one by one until the cores are empty. Once that phase is reached the reactor can be shut down completely and clean up can begin. The statement was made that eventually all of the fuel will be removed and stored in a controlable environment, and the Dai ichie plant will be shut down and closed for good.

Progress is slow moving, but TEPCO is continuing forward and hopefully the entire plant will be shut down before New Year 2012. The death toll from the earthquake/tsunami is reported to be over 25,000, with an additional 11,000 still missing. Approximately 200,000 people are still living in shelters awaiting new housing promised by the Japanese Gov. The Gov is looking for suitable locations on higher ground to build and house these people. Our kids have been involved with a fund raiser within their school and are now wearing I love Japan "T" shirts in support of the Japanese people. They wear them with pride.

[JERRY2KONE]

TOKYO (Reuters) – At age 72, Yasuteru Yamada believes he has a few more good years ahead.

But not so many that the retired engineer is worried about the consequences of working on the hazardous front line cleaning up the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant.

"I will be dead before cancer gets me," said Yamada, who has organized an unlikely band of more than 270 retirees and older workers eager to work for nothing but the sense of service at the site of the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.

Yamada, who spent 28 years at Sumitomo Metal Industries, says the Fukushima clean-up job is too sprawling, too complex and too important to be left to Tokyo Electric Power, the Fukushima plant's embattled utility operator.

Instead, he wants to see the Japanese government take over at Fukushima with his group of graying volunteers with expertise in civil engineering and construction stepping in on an unpaid basis, "like the Red Cross."

Japanese government officials were initially cool to the unsolicited proposal. Goshi Hosono, an aide to Prime Minister Naoto Kan, dismissed Yamada's volunteers as a "suicide corps."

But in a late May meeting at Tokyo Electric's headquarters, Hosono seemed more receptive to the suggestion amid mounting concern about the health risks for younger workers already at Fukushima.

Three unidentified workers collapsed at Fukushima from apparent heat stroke over the weekend. Meanwhile, at least two plant workers have exceeded the government's limit for radiation exposure by a wide margin, putting them at a higher risk of cancer and other disease.

"The problem is that the first wave of workers came for the money. And they didn't - they couldn't - object to the conditions," said Yamada, who has been running his project from a tiny office above a beauty shop a short walk from Tokyo Electric's headquarters.

"Because we don't expect a fee we can speak to (Tokyo Electric) as equals," he said, adding that his team would press the utility to uphold the highest safety standards.

Tokyo Electric aims to bring three reactors at Fukushima that experienced a meltdown to a stable shutdown by January. After that, experts see a project of a decade or more to remove the uranium and plutonium fuel and secure the site.

Kazuhiko Ishida, a 63-year-old construction worker in Shiga prefecture, has volunteered to join Yamada's team. As a young worker, he helped build the Fukushima No. 1 reactor's outer shell and says he had "complicated feelings" watching it blown apart by a hydrogen explosion after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami as its reactor melted down.

"I told my wife I wanted to go," he said. "She told me to do what I had to do."

Yamada met on Monday with Trade Minister Banri Kaieda, whose ministry oversees Japan's nuclear safety agency. Kaieda seemed receptive to the proposal of a volunteer corps, he said.

"Depending on the situation, there might be a need for a suicide mission. But that is the last resort," Yamada said. "I myself would volunteer for that, but everyone must make up their own mind."