News about the nuclear disaster at Fukushima may have disappeared from the corporate media, but the crisis is far from over. On Feb. 12, plant owner Tokyo Electric Power Company reported that temperatures inside the Number 2 reactor had reached 82 degrees Celsius (180 degrees F), raising concerns that it may be unstable.
Although Tepco’s safety guidelines state that a reactor must be kept below 80 degrees C in order to maintain cold shutdown, the company acknowledges a 20 degree margin of error, so temperatures may have reached 102 degrees C. The increase could force the Japanese government to reverse its statement, made two months ago, that the plant had achieved cold shutdown. The reactor remains too contaminated to allow workers access to make more precise measurements.
Thousands of protesters demonstrated against nuclear power in Tokyo on Feb. 11, and an activist group announced it had collected 250,000 signatures on a petition to demand a referendum on the future of nuclear power.
