atsiii

I think this means that TEPCO can not possibly pay the astronomical bill coming,

but also that no one believes TEPCO leadership enough to leave them in control.

Or that anger against TEPCO leadership is such that it is better to remove them sooner than later,

or both.

Yes to widening the exclusion zone, it is not hard to suspect that TEPCO execs have been trying to make the problems seem smaller than it is in some ways, and that public service is not their 100% priority.

Good point... sadly. It's doubtful that public service is a high priority for most (if not all) large "public" corporations. But I think they (the Government) could take over the handling of the crisis and information dissemination without bailing TEPCO out of the financial responsibilities. With large amounts of public funds being used and infused, I fear it will be difficult to ultimately determine the real cost of the accident.

It is amazing to me that the cost of containment, decommissioning and mothballing the plant could approach 1/2 of the total property damage done by the quake and tsunami, combined. And I suspect that estimate doesn't even include compensation for all the people who lived within what will no doubt become a permanent exclusion or dead zone. The costs are staggering...

* Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the evacuation of residents near the country's stricken nuclear plant will be "long-term".

* Japan will take control of Tokyo Electric Power Co , the operator of the plant, in the face of mounting public concerns over the crisis and a huge potential compensation bill, a domestic newspaper reported on Friday.

* Japan's government may need to spend over 10 trillion yen ($120 billion) in emergency budgets for disaster relief and reconstruction, the country's deputy finance minister, Mitsuru Sakurai, signalled on Thursday.

So... let me get this right: the quake and tsunami combined have caused an estimated $300 Billion in damages; and the Fukushima crisis alone is likely to cost half of that amount? And people are writing articles accusing the world of over-reacting to this crisis?

If the Japanese Government takes over TEPCO and the crisis, aside from putting the cost of the crisis onto the backs of Japanese taxpayers, does this mean that the ultimate cost of the crisis will be hidden and the nuclear industry as a whole will not have to address the potential costs in their future cost/benefit analysis? Already they do not address the real full cost of enriching fuel (which is mostly done by governments) nor the full cost of waste disposal (which remains completely unproven) that will likely also fall onto governments.

It is "selective capitalism" at its best: privatize the profits and nationalize the costs. What could be better (if you are one of the select few)?

Friday Morning Update: (Reuters) - Following are main developments after a massive earthquake and tsunami devastated northeast Japan and crippled a nuclear power station, raising the risk of an uncontrolled radiation leak.

* Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the evacuation of residents near the country's stricken nuclear plant will be "long-term".

* Japan will take control of Tokyo Electric Power Co , the operator of the plant, in the face of mounting public concerns over the crisis and a huge potential compensation bill, a domestic newspaper reported on Friday.

* Prime Minister Naoto Kan said the country needed to debate its energy policy based on studies of the Fukushima plant disaster, as anger grows at the ongoing crisis.

* Radiation in water at underground tunnel near reactor 10,000 times above normal. Abnormal level of radioactive caesium found in beef from the area, Kyodo reports.

* UN watchdog suggests widening of the exclusion zone around Fukushima nuclear power station after radiation measured at a village 40 km from the facility exceeded a criterion for evacuation.

* The consistently high levels of radiation found in the sea outside the plant complex may mean that radiation is leaking out continuously, Japan's nuclear watchdog said early Thursday.

* Japan's government may need to spend over 10 trillion yen ($120 billion) in emergency budgets for disaster relief and reconstruction, the country's deputy finance minister, Mitsuru Sakurai, signalled on Thursday.

It's amazing to me that even before this accident has played out, and long before any chance to study and understand it, TVA officials are already running articles like, "Fukushima: Why It Could never Happen Here." They talk proudly about how their backup designs and safety-oriented culture is so much better than in Japan; not realizing that just by making such statements they show themselves to be peas in the same pod.

They talk proudly about how the design of their backups could withstand even the 1000 year flood event on the Tennessee River, as if they didn't understand basic statistics (there was a great book in the 1950's entitled, "How to Lie With Statistics"). The fact is, there is nothing in statistics to say that a 1000-year flood event could not occur each year for three years running, nor that a 10,000 year flood event could not happen in any given year.

And for all the talk about nuclear plants in seismic zones, I remember learning in elementary school that the largest earthquake in the history of North America was centered somewhere in Missouri (now I will have to go look that up and make sure I am remembering correctly!).

I just don't get it; there doesn't seem to be any real engineering or scientific interest to actually learn something from this accident--i.e. what worked, what didn't, and why. Everyone (both sides) just starts spinning before the dust (radioactive as it is, unfortunately!) has had a chance to settle. But science thrives by asking questions and then trying to answer them. Not the other way around.

I sure hope for better news, tomorrow.

Yes I do a swift transfer monthly and If I do it early in the morning the money only takes a couple of hours most times ,

How do you initiate this Swift transfer from here? I'm wanting to do the same thing; to transfer $1000 from my U.S. bank account (with debit card) to my new K-bank account here in Thailand, but when I went into the Koh Chang branch of K-bank, they actually told me to go outside and withdraw money using the ATM until I had what I wanted to deposit. Ridiculous. So my question is: how do you do this simple transaction?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/31/world/asia/31japan.html?src=mv

The isotope, cesium 137, was measured in one village by the International Atomic Energy Agency at a level exceeding the standard that the Soviet Union used as a gauge to recommend abandoning land surrounding the Chernobyl reactor, and at another location not precisely identified by the agency at more than double the Soviet standard. The measurements were made between March 18 and March 26, the agency said.

The international team, using a measure of radioactivity called the becquerel, found as much as 3.7 million becquerels per square meter; the standard used at Chernobyl was 1.48 million. Dr. Lyman said that if a plume of contaminants had drifted with the wind, a large amount could have been dumped in one spot by a rainstorm. “I think it’s not surprising that there would be local concentrations that high,” he said. But Japan should expand the evacuation zone, now set at 19 miles, he said, and the International Atomic Energy Agency should release data faster.

Hidehiko Nishiyama, deputy director general of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, said Wednesday that seawater collected about 300 yards from the Fukushima Daiichi station was found to contain iodine 131 at 3,355 times the safety standard. On Sunday, a test a mile north showed 1,150 times the maximum level, and a test the day before showed 1,250 times the limit in seawater taken from a monitoring station at the plant. On Thursday, iodine 131 rose to 4,385 times the statutory limit.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/31_16.html

Death toll as of Thursday morning

The death toll from the March 11th quake and tsunami in northeastern Japan rose to 11,417 as of Thursday morning. The National Police Agency says 16,273 others are listed as missing, bringing the number of dead or missing to nearly 28,000.

The largest number of deaths -- 6,959 -- have been confirmed in Miyagi Prefecture, along with 3,349 in Iwate and 1,049 in Fukushima.

Heck, every time there's an armory explosion or guns & ammo go missing from a military arsenal in Thailand, essentially no one gets disciplined.

And it just keeps happening. The Pak Chong armoury has even blown up twice.

Japanese corporate culture prevents anyone from being responsible for anything. This has a lot to do with the mis-management at the plant both prior to and after the Tsunami.

In Thailand it is always the "third hand" that did it :-)

5555... I don't mean to make light of serious things, but with all this tragedy going on--we must look for a little levity where we can.

You have to admit, If you were a cartoonist I think you could have a lot of fun drawing cartoons of Thai Nuclear Plants. I can envision cartoons with miles and miles of electrical cable spaghetti--more than half of which is unused--strewn haphazard around and hanging so low workers are forced to duck under it. Or the Thai security guard at the front gate with--white gloves and epaulets--waving through a caravan of terrorists or Russian Mafia just because they have lights flashing and sirens blaring and look important. Or scooter taxis everywhere--weaving in and out of countless food vendors that are washing their woks in the cooling pool--as they pick up and drop off employees with Official Clearances in the highly secure compound.

Of course the plant wouldn't have a physical address that uniquely identified it as a place on the earth, so in the case of an emergency, people calling 1-9-1 would try to explain on whose family's land the plant was built three years before, or that it was just past the 7-11 on Rama-something Road near the British Club (or some such equally well-known landmark).

Okay, okay... I'll stop; I've poked enough fun. Be it known--If I didn't love Thailand, I wouldn't live here.

Why not just go into any bank and have them do it through your card, tell them its above the daily atm withdrawal limit and you want 1000 dollars in one payment. They should use there own machine inside the bank same as stores use and there is NO fee either for doing so, your own bank may charge you though for the transaction same as they would if you used the card in a store. Make sure you take your passport for ID. This facility "may" only be on available at larger branches and not every small bank outlet.Just ask them if they have the facility or not if they say no then move on to the next one. Larger Bangkok Bank branches have it for sure as I have used them.

Thank you! That is exactly what I tried to do when I was told to go outside and use the ATM. I am back in BKK now, so perhaps I'll try again at a larger branch here.

" IAEA Says "There Might Be Re-Criticality At Fukushima"

I've seen the mention in the Bloomberg article but I can't find an authoritative link about the IAEA press conference where this was supposedly said. Anyone got one?

The Bloomberg article referenced the IAEA's website: http://www.iaea.org/ so you might look there. Good luck!

http://search.japant...20110331x1.html

Up to 1,000 bodies left untouched within Fukushima no-go zone

Radiation fears have prevented authorities from collecting as many as 1,000 bodies of victims of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami from within the 20-km-radius evacuation zone around the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant, police sources said Thursday.

One of the sources said bodies had been "exposed to high levels of radiation after death." The view was supported by the detection Sunday of elevated levels of radiation on a body found in Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture, about 5 km from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. Elevated levels of radiation detected on the victim in the town of Okuma last Sunday forced local police to give up on retrieving the body.

They initially planned to inspect the bodies after transporting them outside the evacuation zone, but the plan is being reconsidered due to the concerns over exposure. Even after the bodies are handed over to the victims' families, cremating them could spread plumes containing radioactive materials, while burying the victims could contaminate the soil around them, according to the sources.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/31/us-japan-quake-snapshot-idUSTRE72P0FT20110331

* UN watchdog suggests widening of the exclusion zone around Fukushima nuclear power station after radiation measured at a village 40 km from the facility exceeds a criterion for evacuation.

* The level of radioactive iodine found in seawater near Japan's stricken nuclear power plant was 4,385 times more than the legal limit on Thursday, the nuclear safety agency said. That was the highest recorded since the crisis began.

http://online.wsj.co...3520924172.html

The International Atomic Energy Agency issued a statement saying it had found large samples of radiation outside the Japanese government's official evacuation zone around the plant, and suggested a possible expansion of the perimeter.

Early Thursday morning in Japan, the IAEA issued a statement saying that large amounts of harmful radioactive elements were found in soil samples in the village of Iitate , located 25 miles northwest of the Fukushima Daiichi plant. The government has evacuated the area 12 ½ miles around the plant, and suggested residents within 19 miles stay indoors. Iodine-131 and cesium-137 were found at levels exceeding the IAEA's key criteria. The agency advised the Japanese officials to "carefully assess the situation" and received a response that they were already doing so. A Japanese government spokesman said Thursday morning the government had no immediate plans to expand the zone.

Meanwhile, officials recorded the highest radiation level yet in the ocean next to the damaged plant. The readings showed toxic water from the site—government officials said they weren't sure exactly where—was reaching the ocean, and marked a setback.

http://www.bloomberg...ar-reactor.html

Japan is considering pouring concrete into its crippled Fukushima atomic plant as the United Nations's nuclear watchdog agency warned that a potential uncontrolled chain reaction could cause further radiation leaks.

The risk to workers might be greater than previously thought because melted fuel in the No. 1 reactor building may be causing isolated, uncontrolled nuclear chain reactions, Denis Flory, nuclear safety director for the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency, said at a press conference in Vienna. Nuclear experts call these reactions "localized criticality," which will increase radiation and hamper the ability to shut down the plant. The reactions consist of a burst of heat, radiation and sometimes an "ethereal blue flash," according to the U.S. Energy Department's Los Alamos National Laboratory web site.

...I am just trying to keep a rational view of the actual situation we face right now.

Julian, thanks for the science--that's great and helps a lot!! Keep it up.

Simple Question: I want to transfer $1000 from my U.S. bank account (which is setup with a VISA Debit card) to my new Kasikorn ATM account for use here in Thailand.

But when I went to the K-bank branch in Koh Chang, they told me I should just use my Debit card in the ATM to withdraw funds from my U.S. bank until I had the +/- 30,000 baht I wanted, then bring that cash into the bank and deposit it into my K-bank account. Considering the daily limits and ATM fees, this seems totally ridiculous.

Can someone tell me how to accomplish this simple task, namely just pulling $1000 from my U.S. bank checking/debit account and having it deposited into my new K-bank ATM account?

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/03/30/bloomberg1376-LIT5E61A1I4H01-6KIILQMGKMLJKJOBQ5U13C50LS.DTL

March 30 (Bloomberg) -- Damaged reactors at the crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant may take three decades to decommission and cost operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. more than 1 trillion yen ($12 billion), engineers and analysts said.

"It looks indisputable that Tepco will go ahead and dismantle the four reactors, and costs may exceed 1 trillion yen," said Murakami, who worked at Japan Atomic for 13 years and was involved in the decommissioning of the Tokai plant. "Removing damaged fuels from the reactors may take more than two years, and any delays would further increase the cost."

http://www.guardian....fukushima-plant

Japanese officials have conceded they are no closer to resolving the nuclear crisis at Fukushima Daiichi power plant, as new readings showed a dramatic increase in radioactive contamination in the sea. The country's nuclear and industrial safety agency, Nisa, said radioactive iodine-131 at 3,355 times the legal limit had been identified in the sea about 300 yards south of the plant, although officials have yet to determine how it got there.

The government's acceptance of help from the US and France has strengthened the belief that the battle to save the stricken reactors, now well into its third week, is lost.

On Tuesday, a US engineer who helped install reactors at the plant said he believed the radioactive core in unit 2 may have melted through the bottom of its containment vessel and on to a concrete floor.

Robert Peter Gale, a US medical researcher who was brought in by Soviet authorities after the Chernobyl disaster, said recent higher readings of radioactive iodine-131 and caesium-137 should be of greater concern than reports earlier this week of tiny quantities of plutonium found in soil samples. He added: "It's obviously alarming when you talk about radiation, but if you have radiation in non-gas form I would say dump it in the ocean." "The dilutional factor could not be better – there's no better place. If you deposit it on earth or in places where people live there is no dilutional effect. From a safety point of view the ocean is the safest place."

Analysts said a prolonged crisis at the Fukushima plant could place intolerable pressure on the economy. "The worst-case scenario is that this drags on not one month or two months or six months, but for two years, or indefinitely," said Jesper Koll of JPMorgan Securities in Tokyo. "Japan will be bypassed. That is the real nightmare scenario."

Tepco shares plunged by almost 18% again on Wednesday morning and have lost 75% of their value since 11 March. Reports on Tuesday said the government was considering nationalising the beleaguered utility.

So... when all the engineering and safety systems have failed, what does the Japanese Government's leading medical consultant (from the U.S.) propose?

..."Just dump the radiation in the ocean."

Friends of the Earth, the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, and Physicians for Social Responsibility have filed a Freedom of Information Act demanding U.S. government data on radiation releases from the Fukushima nuclear complex.

Who knew Obama had a squadron of robots at his beck & call? The guy is a miracle worker.

5555! Yea, and if Obama can do it, maybe Fox News could send a Legion of mindless robots to help out, too? They might even be able to "part the seas" with their religious purity and fervor; keeping the Pacific ocean from becoming contaminated in the process.

Sorry, that was uncalled for. But you made me laugh, and I succumb to the humor of the moment.

And just when we think it couldn't get worse... we are reminded there are four more reactors only 10 miles away!!

(Reuters) - Smoke seen at a second power plant in Fukushima was from a so-called electrical distribution board and has dispersed, Japan's nuclear safety body said on Wednesday.

The expert, Richard Lahey, says he believes the reactor core has melted through the bottom of the pressure vessel and at least some of it is down on the concrete floor beneath. This would mean that in simple terms the accident is no longer a matter of melting fuel rods, but of meltdown.

MARK COLVIN: But he's (Richard Lahey) coming to that conclusion through indirect means. I mean there's no reason to doubt his expertise, as you say, he was the nuclear safety expert at GE when they installed these reactors. But he's not actually there and I suppose I'm asking why hasn't the Nuclear Safety Agency, the government, or TEPCO said anything about this, confirmed it or denied it?

MARK COLVIN: If a nuclear meltdown is in progress or has happened at reactor number two, it's safe to say, isn't it, that that will make it even more difficult to get things under control at the other reactors?

...in particular, the emergency systems for injecting water into the reactor cores would be the biggest worry. If those went out, and the cores became exposed again, then further explosions due to either hydrogen, and/or steam pressure, would become a distinct possibility (as we saw soon after the original quake). But still it is likely to be less catastrophic than Chernobyl proportions, where the (very much bigger) reactor was running at full blast (well, actually 10 times full blast just before it blew), with next to no control rods, and where the resultant graphite fire continued for some time afterwards. A huge fire would seem less likely, they shouldn't be too many combustible materials around. Apart from the fuel rods themselves that is..... and any hydrogen they might produce on contact with water. At least there is no graphite to worry about....

And of course another tsunami would wash all that highly radioactive water into the sea.... that would be pretty bad...

Let's hope it doesn't happen, eh?

Thanks, Julian. I guess my biggest concern, aside from the reactor cores, is the #4 cooling pool. This pool contains not only spent fuel rods, but also all 548 current fuel rods from #4's core--that were loaded into the pool last November or December for core maintenance. If anything happened to suspend the cooling of this pool (and it is not yet clear if the integrity of the pool has been compromised and whether or not it's leaking), then there is more than enough "hot fuel" here to boil off its water within days and subsequently ignite. Needless to say--this pool like all cooling pools--has no containment structure around it and is open to the atmosphere.

While I use the prospect of another major event as the basis of my question, my concern is that it may not take another large scale event to inhibit the ability to cool this pool (and the others!). If, for example, significant contamination were released from one of the nearby breached reactor cores, emergency crews could not get close enough to the pool to cool it--even though they may be able to keep water circulating to the cores.

What thinks ye?

The Japanese government is considering new measures to stem radiation fallout from the troubled reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, including covering them with cloth, Kyodo news reported on Wednesday. Top government spokesman Yukio Edano said the authorities are looking into "every possibility" to rein in the crisis at the plant, which was damaged by a powerful earthquake and tsunami on March 11. The special cloth would reduce the amount of radioactive particles being released into the atmosphere.

Another measure under consideration is to collect contaminated seawater near the plant in a tanker. The water is reported to contain radioactive iodine at 3,355 times the legal limit. Prime Minister Naoto Kan said the government is on maximum alert as efforts continue to try to prevent major nuclear fallout.

http://en.rian.ru/world/20110330/163280916.html