US Ambassador to Japan John Roos Visited Fukushima I Nuke Plant with NRC, DOE Experts

The visit was part of the ambassador's visit to Fukushima Prefecture on January 16. It was his first visit to Fukushima Prefecture ever.

The visit to the nuclear power plant was not open to the press, and details are unknown.

From Kyodo News (1/16/2012):

ルース米大使、福島を初視察　「住民の危機去ってない」

Us Ambassador to Japan Roos visited Fukushima for the first time, says "Danger to the residents are not over"

ルース駐日米大使は１６日、福島県を初めて訪れ、事故発生から１０カ月たった東京電力福島第１原発（双葉町、大熊町）を視察した。いわき市の仮設住宅では１時間以上、大熊町の避難住民６人から暮らしぶりなどを聞き「ここで暮らす人たちに危機はまだ去っていない。米国政府は日本政府と連携し、可能な限りの支援をする」と報道陣に述べた。

US Ambassador to Japan John Roos visited Fukushima Prefecture for the first time on January 16 and visited Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant (located in Futaba-machi and Okuma-machi) ten months after the start of the accident. At temporary housing in Iwaki City, he spent more than one hour talking to 6 residents from Okuma-machi. He later told the press, "The danger to the people who live here is not over. The US government, in collaboration with the Japanese government, will do all it can to support them."

　福島第１原発の視察は非公開。米国のエネルギー省（ＤＯＥ）や原子力規制委員会（ＮＲＣ）の専門家らとともに、復旧の進み具合を見て回ったという。

The ambassador's visit to Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant was closed to the public. The ambassador is said to have surveyed the progress for restoration work with experts from the US Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

　視察後、津波で４０９世帯が浸水したいわき市の久之浜地区を訪れ、堤防に上がって花を手向け黙とう。

After the visit to the plant, he visited Hisanohama District of Iwaki City where 409 homes were flooded by the tsunami. He dedicated flowers and stood in silence for a few moments on the coastal embankment.

Well, spending more than 1 hours with the evacuees is much more than what the Japanese politicians have done.

The news of Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant has almost totally dried up ever since PM Noda's silly declaration of "cold shutdown state". What I suspect though is that the silly declaration was a signal to the Japanese media to stop reporting on the plant regularly (which they did) and the real work at the plant could start, away from the media's eyes. (Not that they were seeing much to begin with.)

In that regard, the fact that the experts from the US DOE and the NRC accompanying the ambassador is very interesting. After all, they may know more about the plant than the Japanese, having received SPEEDI information since March 14, 2011 (Japanese people were told at that time SPEEDI was not working) and other technical information from the Japanese government and TEPCO which haven't been disclosed to the Japanese public.

TEPCO is supposed to start the effort to probe inside the Containment Vessel of Reactor 2 with an endoscope on January 17, first by drilling into the CV. They will insert the endoscope on January 19.

Tweet

US Department of Energy #Fukushima 1st Year Dose Estimate

Much more detailed than what the Japanese government is willing to provide. (No surprise there.)

A wide area beyond the 30-kilometer radius evacuation zone may receive 100 millirem per year (which translates to 1 milli-sievert/year), according to the US Department of Energy assessment based on 334 flight hours of Aerial Measurement Systems (drones, reconnaissance), 150,000 measurements by Department of Energy, Department of Defense, and Japanese sources, and 504 samples taken in Japan and analyzed in the US.

The US Department of Energy says their dose estimate is conservative, not accounting for time spent indoors.

The 80-kilometer evacuation suggested by the US government for the US citizens in Japan, if you look at the 1st year radiation dose estimate on the 3rd slide, looks very much justified.

For this and the past assessments, go to "The Situation in Japan" at the US Department of Energy.

Radiation Monitoring Data from Fukushima Area 04/18/2011

View more presentations from US Department of Energy

Tweet

GAO's Sting Operation Against EPA and DOE "Energy Star" Program

ROTFLOL, LOL, LOL...

I did, for the first time in a long time. This is from Lewrockwell.com, and the article was taken from CNS News:

Obama’s EPA Gave Energy Star Certification to ‘Gas-Powered Clock Radio’ and 14 Other Phony Products, GAO Says (Matt Cover, 4/30/2010 CNS News)

"The Environmental Protection Agency certified that a “gas-powered clock radio” was an energy-efficient product under the government’s Energy Star program, despite the fact that neither the clock nor its manufacturer ever existed.

"The clock and 14 other phony products were part of an investigation into the Energy Star program conducted by the Government Accountability Office, which submitted 20 fraudulent Energy Star applications from four fake companies. The EPA evaluated 16 of those products while the Department of Energy (DOE) evaluated four.

"Fifteen of the phony products – including the gas-powered alarm clock – and all four of the fake companies were certified by EPA/DOE under the Energy Star program.

"GAO conducted the investigation between June 2009 to March 2010, setting up fake Web sites and using rented post office boxes and cell phones to make it look like its fake companies were real. (See fake companies’ Web sites: Cool Rapport, Futurizon Solar Innovations, Spartan Digital Electronics, and Tropical Thunder.)" [The article continues.]


I just had to find the gas-powered clock radio. So I visited all of the fake sites, checking out tongue-in-cheek product descriptions and corporate philosophies. Cool Rapport has a catchy message: "Welcome to Cool Rapport online - relax, put your feet up and stay a while". Futurizon Solar Innovation has a picture of daffodils for its geothermal heat pumps that are "cut above the rest". They seem to have made a liberal use of photos from residential real estate listings (particularly Tropical Thunder).

I finally found the clock at Spartan Digital Electronics.

Here's how the company describes the product:

Gas-Powered Alarm Clock
Spartan Digital Electronics is proud to announce its latest line of home electronics. The gas-powered Black-Gold model clock radio is sleek, durable, easy on your electric bill and surprisingly quiet. The newly Energy Star-qualified product is safe for indoor use and easy on the environment. This product approximates the size of a small portable generator for increased ease while traveling.

Hahahahaha I love this. And EPA/DOE issued Energy Star certification. (Here's the full report from GAO.) I highly approve of such sting operations. GAO's conclusion: "Energy Star is for the most part a self-certification program vulnerable to fraud and abuse." What a surprise. Now we know what travesty this government certification process is. Wait till all these "eco" "green" "clean energy" certifications get unleashed on us if the cap and crap bill passes the Senate.

I love to have the GAO do the full audit of the Federal Reserve, too.

Tweet

White House Releases Obama's Speech for September 8 Back to School Event

as promised. It's on the White House website.

After reading it, what I don't quite understand is:

1. What's the point of the speech? He is supposed to be speaking to toddlers still in kindergartens all the way up to surly high school seniors. For kindergartners the speech would mostly be gibberish, and probably the same for the high school seniors who would be bored to death.
2. Why does the Department of Education need such a detailed lesson plan for a mundane speech like this?

Let's look at the point 1 above. WHO IS THE TARGET AUDIENCE?

Kindergartners (and probably high school seniors) do not have an attention span of 20 minutes. They would either not understand the speech or couldn't care less about the speech (high schoolers). So who is the president speaking to? Who's left?

It's elementary school and middle school students. That could be inferred from his reference to the author of Harry Potter series, quite popular with, guess who?: elementary school kids and middle school kids. They would understand the level of English the president would be using, and they are also malleable enough to listen to their teachers and follow instructions.

Equally mystifying to me is the point 2: Why elaborate lesson plan for a plain enough speech? It almost looks like the lesson plan is the main purpose, rather than the speech itself.

Sure, after her lesson plan (created by the "Teaching Ambassador Fellows" at DOE) drew much criticism, the Secretary of Education Duncan changed part of the plan on Sunday:

"On Sunday, the secretary acknowledged that a section about writing to the president on how students can help him meet education goals was poorly worded. It has been changed.

""We just clarified that to say write a letter about your own goals and what you're going to do to achieve those goals," Duncan said on CBS' "Face the Nation."

I'm looking for the actual revised text of the lesson plan, and I'll post it if I find one. I have already posted the old plan, and I suspect the revision is more semantic.

After looking at the speech itself and the lesson plan, my conclusion is that this is an exercise in branding - just like a ad firm on Madison Avenue would do - to sell this particular brand of "President of the United States" in the person of Barak Obama.

Other nitpicking:

• He mentions Apple's iPhone. But he is a Blackberry addict.
• He also mentions XBox. That's Microsoft. Is he doing the product/brand placement?
• Whoever wrote the speech clearly decided to completely ignore his white grandparents who raised him. Rather, Obama is depicted as having a childhood in poverty being raised by a single mother on food stamps.
• His mother's second husband was a well-to-do Indonesian. To say he couldn't go to the school that American kids went because his mother didn't have money doesn't ring true. Besides, his mother's extra lessons were likely to have been English language, as his first school (St. Francis of Assisi school, a private Catholic school in Jakarta's up-scale Menteng district) was taught in Bahasa Indonesia.
• The career choices he offers in the speech are rather uninspiring, wouldn't you say? Writer (book or newspaper articles), inventor (who could invent things like iPhone), doctor, teacher, police officer, nurse, architect, lawyer, member of the military.
• Google, Twitter, Facebook. Three more brand placements.

Lastly, why education is important, according to the president:

"You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You’ll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy."

Cure disease like cancer and AIDS (health care)
Develop new energy technology (climate policy)
Protect our environment (climate policy)
Fight poverty and homelessness, crime, discrimination (wealth redistribution)
Make our nation more fair and more free (whatever that means)
Build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy. (economic policy)

Except for the last one, these are this administration's agendas.

The last one would be tough to do with ever-increasing government oversight, intervention, and tax burden (both corporate and individual) set to increase even more. How about stop spending borrowed money so that you don't take away capital from the private sector that actually create jobs, Mr. President?

Tweet