Source: zardoz.nilu.no
Christian Schallert’s shape-shifting apartment
We have reported on many small apartment dwellers who have turned their cramped spaces into something innovative. There was that Hong Kong man who created the Domestic Transformer, and the Japanese man who built his house in a space designed for parking. This is Christian Schallert, who lives in what many blogs are calling a “Lego apartment”. At least, that is how one of his friends in the video (which you can see after the jump) describes it. I’m not certain whether the Lego is a good description, but it certainly is creative.
Schallert took a place that was a complete dive and turned it into a compact yet cozy living space. Apparently, he was inspired by the designs of Japanese homes plus hidden storage units.
You will note how this bed conveniently slides underneath the balcony. The dining room table folds up into the wall, and everything else seems to fit conveniently behind cabinet-like doors. There is even a small room for the toilet, and a “glass cube” for the shower.
Well, if I was living the single life, I would sure like to live here. Right now, I am trying to live in a small place with three kids, and trying to compact as much as possible. I’m not dong as good a job as this guy.
US nuclear regulator finds issues after Fukushima
* Post-Fukushima inspections found issues at US plants
* Plants must certify compliance with rules by June 10By Roberta Rampton
WASHINGTON, May 11 (Reuters) - Inspections on U.S. nuclear plants following the disaster at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi plant have raised questions about how ready they are to deal with explosions and extreme events, the head of the U.S. nuclear safety regulator said on Wednesday.
Gregory Jackzo, chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, did not specify what issues were uncovered, but said he told nuclear plants they will have until June 10 to confirm they are complying with rules put in place after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
Inspection reports on the plants will be released by next week, an NRC spokesman said. In the meantime, the NRC has issued a "bulletin" to plants requesting information on their strategies and disaster readiness.
"It's just a document that will ask licensees to provide information about some of the things we found as part of our inspections of the last several weeks," Jaczko told reporters after a speech to the Nuclear Energy Assembly.
"As with any program we inspect, we find areas where there are needs for improvement and the bulletin is our response to ensure those issues get addressed," Jackzo said.
Plants will need to confirm they have a strategy and equipment in place to deal with extreme events and have staff trained to carry out the plan.
By July 11, plants must also certify how they are maintaining, testing and controlling equipment, how they adjust their strategies over time, and how they are working with local organizations on emergency planning.
The head of the U.S. nuclear industry trade group revealed on Tuesday that a self-regulatory body has found some U.S. nuclear plants are not in full compliance with the rules.
The Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, or INPO, found issues with where plants store and place equipment, and said plants with more than one reactor need to improve their ability to respond to emergencies affecting all the units. [ID:nN10113035]
But an NRC spokesman said the agency's inspections and bulletin were not prompted by the INPO findings, which were an industry-led effort to make sure plants are prepared for disasters after the Fukushima accident.
Senior staff of the NRC are slated to give their first report to commissioners on Thursday on possible safety improvements for U.S. plants in the wake of the Japanese disaster.
(Editing by Sofina Mirza-Reid)
Source: Reuters.com
Fukushima No. 4 Reactor Now Boiling
Tuesday, the water meant to cool spent fuel rods in the No. 4 reactor was boiling. If the water evaporates and the rods run dry, they could overheat and catch fire, potentially spreading radioactive materials in dangerous clouds.
Temperatures appeared to be rising in the spent fuel pools at two other reactors at the plant, No. 5 and No. 6, said Yukio Edano, the chief cabinet secretary. Meanwhile, workers continued to pump seawater into the No. 1 and No. 3 reactors, where cooling systems remained unusable.
If any of the spent fuel rods in the pools do indeed catch fire, nuclear experts say, the high heat would loft the radiation in clouds that would spread the radioactivity.
A spokesman for the Japanese company that runs the stricken reactors said in an interview on Monday that the spent fuel at the Fukushima Daiichi and Daini plants had been left uncooled since shortly after the quake.
The company, Tokyo Electric, has not been able to cool the spent fuel pools because power has been knocked out, said Johei Shiomi, the spokesman. “There may be some heating up,” he said.
Depending on the freshness of the spent fuel, Mr. Lochbaum said, the water in an uncooled pool would start to boil in anywhere from days to a week. The water would boil off to a dangerous level in another week or two.
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Vivian Norris: Deadly Silence on Fukushima
TEPCO, a giant media sponsor, has an annual 20 billion yen advertising budget.
Macrobiotic Diet Prevents Radiation Sickness Among A-Bomb Survivors in Japan - In August, 1945, at the time of the atomic bombing of Japan, Tatsuichiro Akizuki, M.D., was director of the Department of Internal Medicine at St. Francis's Hospital in Nagasaki. Most patients in the hospital, located one mile from the center of the blast, survived the initial effects of the bomb, but soon after came down with symptoms of radiation sickness from the fallout that had been released. Dr. Akizuki fed his staff and patients a strict macrobiotic diet of brown rice, miso soup, wakame and other sea vegetables, Hokkaido pumpkin, and sea salt and prohibited the consumption of sugar and sweets. As a result, he saved everyone in his hospital, while many other survivors in the city perished from radiation sickness.
I gave the cooks and staff strict orders that they should make unpolished whole-grain rice balls, adding some salt to them, prepare strong miso soup for each meal, and never use sugar. When they didn't follow my orders, I scolded them without mercy, 'Never take sugar. Sugar will destroy your blood!'...
This dietary method made it possible for me to remain alive and go on working vigorously as a doctor. The radioactivity may not have been a fatal dose, but thanks to this method, Brother Iwanaga, Reverend Noguchi, Chief Nurse Miss Murai, other staff members and in-patients, as well as myself, all kept on living on the lethal ashes of the bombed ruins. It was thanks to this food that all of us could work for people day after day, overcoming fatigue or symptoms of atomic disease and survive the disaster" free from severe symptoms of radioactivity.
Why is this not on the front page of every single newspaper in the world? Why are official agencies not measuring from many places around the world and reporting on what is going on in terms of contamination every single day since this disaster happened? Radioactivity has been being released now for almost two full months! Even small amounts when released continuously, and in fact especially continuous exposure to small amounts of radioactivity, can cause all kinds of increases in cancers.
Uesugi stated that since March 11th, the government has excluded all internet media and all foreign media from official press conferences on the "Emergency Situation." While foreign media have scrambled to gather information about the Fukushima Reactor, they have been denied access to the direct information provided by the government and one consequence of this is that "rumor-rife news has been broadcast overseas."
Job seeker says ending up at nuclear plant not mentioned in ad
An Osaka man was made to work at the crippled nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture for about two weeks, when he had been expecting to work in neighboring Miyagi Prefecture, said a job placement center in Osaka on Monday.
The worker in his 60s received daily wages of about 24,000 yen, double the sum he was initially promised, but complained that the pay undervalued the work he did at the Fukushima plant, the Nishinari labor welfare center said after interviewing the man and the company that hired him.
‘‘I was finally issued with a radiation dosimeter on my fourth day of work there,’’ he was quoted as saying.
On March 17, the man accepted the offer of a job—details of which had been posted at the agency—in the Miyagi Prefecture town of Onagawa. Instead, he was immediately sent to the Fukushima Daiichi plant to work for six hours a day clad in protective gear, handling water to cool the Nos. 5 and 6 reactors there, the center said.
The president of the subcontractor firm in Gifu Prefecture, which hired the man, told Kyodo News that its client, a construction company, requested workers who can drive 10-ton water trucks in Onagawa and the Gifu company recruited workers in Osaka. The Gifu company told the man to go directly to the firm for the work, it added.
The job center is located in Osaka’s Airin district, which is known as Japan’s largest gathering place for day laborers.
Earlier, a support group for the man spoke out against his treatment by the employer, saying, ‘‘It’s an unpardonable act to send a day laborer in a socially weak position to a dangerous place.’‘
The labor ministry’s Osaka district bureau has also started investigating the case, according to the center.
Unlike the badly damaged Nos. 1 through 4 reactors at the Fukushima plant, Nos. 5 and 6 reactors, which were undergoing regular checkups at the time of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, are in a stable condition called ‘‘cold shutdown.’’
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