atsiii

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/video/2011-03/30/c_13804909.htm

BEIJING, March 30 (Xinhuanet) -- As Japan struggles to recover from the devastating earthquake and tsunami, another strong tremor, at a magnitude of 6.4, struck off the coast of Fukushima late Tuesday. Luckily, no damage was reported from the beleaguered area.

Mitsuhiko Tanaka, a Fukushima nuclear plant designer turned anti-nuclear activist, said utility officials aren't fully equipped to orchestrate the response to the crisis. He says they aren't familiar enough with reactor designs, any more than pilots or stewardesses know the design of a jet engine. He urges more involvement of designers and other experts.

"When a jet begins to crash, you don't ask the pilots for answers to what's gone wrong," he said in an interview.

http://www.boston.co...gain_and_again/

Flying... an interesting analogy. As a pilot I can say that commercial pilots are trained in emergency procedures--probably much like nuc plant operators--and also CRM (Cockpit Resource Management). As an example of CRM, I'll relay what I can remember about the flight of United #232 from Denver to Chicago in about 1989. First, the DC-10 is flown with hydraulics and hydraulics only. As a result, there are three fully redundant hydraulics systems in the a/c. Upon departure from DEN, however, the tail engine ripped off and somehow managed to take all three hydraulics systems with it! Statistically impossible. With no control of the flight surfaces, the pilot quickly discovered that the only control he had was the throttles of the remaining two engines under the wings. If he increased both throttles, the a/c would climb; decreasing both throttles would result in a descent; and differential throttles would lift one wing relative to the other and initiate a turn. That was all he had.

Amazingly, there was a McDonnell Douglas DC-10 design engineer onboard the flight as a pax. The engineer informed the flight crew of his expertise and asked if the Captain wanted him to come forward to help. In the middle of the emergency--trying desperately to keep a severely damaged DC-10 flying with only throttles--the Captain's response was to say, "sure, we can use all the help up here we can get." This is a quintessential example of CRM... in the middle of dealing with an emergency, the Captain welcomed the offer of additional expertise. After years of training, it was the, "Houston, we've got a problem" type response. Openness and honesty, "sure, we can use all the help we can get right now." Now... compare this response to what we have seen from TEPCO and the Japanese Government.

At any rate, to finish the story... upon reaching the cockpit and being briefed on their status, the engineer stated (as engineers often do), "that's impossible! There are three fully redundant hydraulics systems onboard." In time, he learned an important engineering lesson: impossible things do happen! The pilot managed to fly the a/c to Sioux City or Sioux Falls (I can't remember), where he crash landed at the airport saving many of the passengers--and the engineer.

I'm on my way back to Bangkok now... so I will check in tomorrow to see--I hope and pray--better news about Fukushima. Until then, my message to TEPCO and the Japanese Government is: 1) impossible things can and do happen; and 2) when faced with an emergency, be open to using any and every possible resource you may have at your disposal.

bye.

But he said 2 of the samples appeared to contain the type of plutonium used in nuclear fuel, making it most likely that reactor fuel rods were the source.

I find it very difficult to believe that they only "suspect" a leak. If its leaking - or not - it should be bloody obvious.

Edano called for closer monitoring of data, saying that if higher levels of plutonium are found, the government will have to respond.

With more bureaucratic say-nothing speak?

You can rest assured that if they had found only background levels of plutonium left over from weapons testing and previous accidents, they would have released that finding with trumpets blaring. Instead--for the entire week before they released the findings--they said things like, "officials suspect there may be damage to one or more reactor cores." So, IMO, yes--they know and have known very well from where the plutonium is coming.

From NHK - Update:

Japan's top government spokesman says water must be pumped continuously into the No.2 reactor at the troubled Fukushima nuclear plant, despite the leak of highly radioactive water from the unit. The top priority is to prevent the reactor vessel and fuel rods from running dry and overheating. Edano said workers are limiting the injection of water while making sure temperatures of the fuel rods are stable. He said the contaminated water must also be removed as early as possible as a more fundamental step.

Water is being used to cool the reactors but highly radioactive water has been found building up in an adjacent turbine building and a deep trench outside, apparently leaking from the reactor container. Workers at the plant are now struggling to cool the reactor, while controlling the release of more contaminated water. TEPCO is piling up sandbags and concrete around the mouth of the tunnels to prevent flooding.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011 12:56 +0900 (JST)

I took a break from following the gloom and doom of Japan's disasters and evolving nuclear crisis, to look at what's happening here in Thailand. I'm embarrassed to admit I had no idea this level of flooding was already happening. It's a sad deal when people lose their homes and livelihoods. At least so far the loss of life has been low--although that's no consolation whatsoever for the families affected.

I memtioned this on the Japan thread, but I'll pass it along again here. Years ago I had a professor that proposed a simple financial incentive approach to development in danger zones in countries/areas where insurance prevails. His proposal was that for natural disasters, insurance policies should payoff only once. If you get flooded, for example, you can take your settlement and rebuild out of the flood plain. If you don't, and if you ever get flooded again--you will not receive another settlement. The choice would be yours.

http://www.latimes.c...,0,319767.story

The above is an article describing very grim working conditions at Fukushima. Some excerpts:

Reporting from Tokyo— They sleep with just one blanket apiece anywhere there's space — in a conference room, in the hallway, near the bathroom. Because deliveries of supplies are limited, they get by on very little food: Breakfast is packages of high-calorie emergency crackers and a small carton of vegetable juice; dinner consists of a small bag of "magic rice" (just add bottled water) and a can of chicken, mackerel or curry. There is no lunch — handing out a noontime meal would be too complicated in the crowded two-story building.

Nineteen workers have been exposed to more than 100 millisieverts of radiation since the crisis at the facility after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, the Mainichi newspaper reported Monday, quoting Tepco. In the United States, the normal radiation exposure limit for nuclear power plant workers is 50 millisieverts per year; Japan has raised its legal limit to 250 millisieverts because the work is considered so urgent and crucial. "If radiation levels continue to increase, workers are going to have their dose limits challenged even at this emergency level," Lyman said. "Workers could get saturated within a few weeks or even less.

The workers drink bottled water — they are each allotted about 50 ounces a day — but don't have running water to wash their hands or bodies because the plumbing is broken. Instead, they use an alcohol spray. "Some have expressed concern about not being able to change their underwear," said Yokota, who himself looked haggard after his experience, with bags under his eyes and a patchy beard. There's no way for workers to talk to their families because the quake toppled nearby cellphone towers, he added. The plant's phone lines are still down and so the only means of communicating with the outside world is via satellite phone, Yokota said. That's a direct line to Tepco headquarters and is not available for personal calls. Some details about the conditions at the plant, however, have emerged through Twitter feeds and email.

Dr. Robert Peter Gale, an American physician who is advising Japan's government on the health of staffers at the plant, said doctors are "under pressure" and are weighing whether to begin harvesting and banking blood cells from hundreds of workers, measures that could help save their lives later. Gale, who also advised on the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, said about 200 workers there were subjected to high levels of radiation, and 13 eventually got bone marrow transplants.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/29/tepco-nationalisation-idUSL3E7ET00720110329

(Reuters) - A plan to temporarily nationalise Tokyo Electric Power , the operator of a stricken nuclear plant, has been floated by some members of the Japanese government, the Yomiuri newspaper said on Tuesday.

The plan includes the government taking a majority stake in Asia's largest utility as well as helping it pay for damages stemming from the nuclear accident, the newspaper said, citing unidentified government sources.

Sounds just like the "selective capitalism" we have in the U.S. these days. The profits all go to the select few, and when there are problems, the costs are all placed on the shoulders of the tax payers. Then, once the company is bailed out and back on its feet, it can go back to generating power and profits for the select few. What's not to love about that... assuming you're one of the select few.

Another interesting tidbit I read this morning: power for the eastern portion of Japan and Tokyo is 60 hertz, while for the west of Japan it's 50 hertz. Thus, to simply bring in extra power to help compensate for lost generation capacity, they will need to invest Billions of yen to construct frequency transformers. Amazing...

Just curious....in the worst-case scenario, to what extent (if at all) will Thailand be affected by the radiation ?

Others can answer your question about specific potential impacts to Thailand better than me, but please know there is still plenty of hope and technical confidence that--baring another unforeseen event--a "worst case" scenario at Fukushima can and will be avoided.

In the event that a truly "worst case" scenario did develop, it's fair to say that every nation on earth would be affected in one way or another. If not by direct or indirect contamination, then certainly by worldwide food-chain and/or economic ramifications. That is the concept of "worst case."

But again, short of another unforeseen event or development, nobody at TEPCO or the Japanese Government is predicting a "worst case" scenario. That said, assuming everything goes remarkably well from this moment forward, IMO, containing and cleaning up the contamination they are already dealing with will be bad enough.

Is this an accurate assessment of the current situation:

The critical question is whether the containment structures are all intact and not damaged. If so, continuing cooling efforts should be able to prevent further deterioration and a possible massive release of radiation.

Yes and no. They are dealing with two separate sets of challenges: reactor cores and spent fuel cooling pools. Both must be actively cooled. The reactor cores are surrounded by containment vessels, so you are correct--to the extent that if the containment vessels have not been breached, then continued cooling of the cores should avoid runaway meltdowns.

One reactor, however, was using MOX rods which contain a mixture of uranium and plutonium. Plutonium has now been found in the soil samples taken one week ago around the reactors. The presence of plutonium in the soil (in any amount!) confirms: 1) there has at least been a partial meltdown of MOX rods in #3's core and/or its spent fuel cooling pool. And 2) the plutonium has found a path from the melted rod source(s) to the soil where it was sampled. There is no other way for plutonium to be present in the soil. This would suggest that #3's containment vessel, pipes and/or cooling pool has been compromised and leaking. Because of the highly radioactive water found in the turbine building of #2, similar concerns exist for #2's containment vessel, pipes and/or cooling pool.

The cooling pools are almost as large of a challenge as the cores, particularly #4. Reactor #4 was shut down for maintenance, so all of its core fuel rods (548 rods or +/- 98 tons or uranium fuel!) were emptied into its cooling pool prior to the quake. The important thing to realize about the cooling pools is there is no containment structure around them--they are open to the environment--and they too require active cooling. If, for example, leaking radiation from damaged cores was great enough to preclude workers from getting close enough to cool down the pools, then a runaway meltdown is also possible in a pool and it could result in a huge fire and catastrophic release of radiation to the atmosphere.

So yes, the cores must be brought to less than 100 C, all the cooling pools must be actively cooled, and all of the contamination on the site must be contained and somehow disposed of. Not a small order. If they can somehow get it all under control and avoid a catastrophic accident, I suspect they will ultimately flood and seal off the whole site with concrete. Perhaps then they can erect fences with guards and keep people away for the next few hundred years (or more!).

Setting all the B.S. aside, finding plutonium in the soil around the reactors--A WEEK AGO!--confirms without doubt there has been at least a partial meltdown of the MOX rods in either the core, the cooling pool or both. If the contamination is from the core--which most have been suspecting--then it also means the containment vessel is no longer containing. It is still possible that the the containment vessel's integrity has not been compromised, in which case it would point the guilty finger at the plant's "quake-proof" engineering design/construction--which was not adequate to keep pipes from cracking and/or separating under the stresses of a 9.0 quake, creating leaks. Either way, this is bad, bad, bad news.

IMO, the fact that the plutonium was found in samples taken ONE WEEK AGO is indicative of just how bad this news is. Have they known for a week?

This is bad, bad, bad news...

CRAP!! Here is the confirmation... and it's from a dam_n week ago!! unbelievable!

TOKYO, March 28 (Reuters) - Plutonium has been found in soil at various points within Japan's stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex but does not present a risk to human health, operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) said on Monday.

TEPCO vice-president Sakae Muto told journalists at the company's latest briefing that test results showing the plutonium came from samples taken a week ago.

I just heard on France 24 TV that plutonium was found in the soil near #3, but I can't find any confirmation of that online. Has anyone see this news release? If true, it would be very telling!

Update - Monday Night!

http://www.nytimes.c...ner=rss&emc=rss

TOKYO — Highly contaminated water is escaping a damaged reactor at a crippled nuclear power plant in Japan and could soon leak into the ocean, the country's nuclear regulator warned on Monday.

... until it strikes at ones door-steps.

5555 Yea, but that's the beauty of GADD (Global Attention Deficit Disorder). When it finally does come knocking on your own front door, you simply claim to be "shocked" and "outraged" (at somebody... it doesn't really matter whom!), and demand to know who is responsible--which of course is not you.

Attsi-i left cause I have other things like family and work-certainly not due to any optimism-the opposite opinion is what I still hold over the whole situation.

Coming up on 3 weeks now and the situation has gotten worse-not better, sadly.

Yea... worse and not better. And now on the Google-o-meter; Libya, Charlie Sheen, Amy Adams and Reece Witherspoon all rank higher than Fukushima. Perhaps two weeks is about all the more the world can focus on one disaster. After that, it's just "old news."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/29/world/asia/29japan.html

Citing the country’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, Kyodo reported that radioactive iodine 131 was detected Sunday at a concentration 1,150 times the maximum allowable level in a seawater sample taken about a mile north of the drainage outlets of reactor units 1 through 4.

Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for the nuclear agency, said there were no health concerns, Kyodo reported, because fishing would not be conducted in the evacuation-designated area within about 12 miles of the plant.

I most certainly hope they have explained to all the fish not to feed within the evacuation zone and then swim outside the zone where they can be caught. Being Japan, I'm sure the fish will cooperate fully (the protruding nail gets hammered down, etc.). Sorry for my sarcasm!

We haven't heard from core commenters (pun intended) dietz & chandler who are certainly our resident experts. We hope you haven't bailed on us! And we continue to hear from innocent bystanders who did not weigh in early on this conversation. But it's crucial we all work together here for accurate information and to avoid hysteria.

Some have left the board after realizing that it is not after a Holywood script and victory of people trashing the planet thingy happy ending.

It's reality we're dealing with and with all the consequences.

It is obvious many have quit contributing to this thread; but only they can know why. I do think many of the posts got off-topic in taking up the more general issues and arguments of nuclear power. That is not to say that these issues and arguments are not important; but simply that this thread was specifically intended to track the developments at Fukushima--and many of the posts got off that topic.

Japanese officials on Monday worked to determine what to do with highly radioactive water collected at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant as they tackled other problems, including rising temperatures in one of the nuclear reactors. As of Monday morning, there was no place to put water pooled in the basement of the No. 2 reactor's turbine building, said

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/28/japan-idUSL3E7ES03620110328

"I think maybe the situation is much more serious than we were led to believe," said one expert, Najmedin Meshkati, of the University of Southern California, adding it may take weeks to stabilise the situation and the United Nations should step in.

Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. has conceded it faces a protracted and uncertain operation to contain overheating fuel rods and avert a meltdown. "Regrettably, we don't have a concrete schedule at the moment to enable us to say in how many months or years (the crisis will be over)," TEPCO vice-president Sakae Muto said in the latest of round-the-clock briefings the company holds.

But radiation levels in the nearby sea, which had soared on Sunday to 1,850 times normal, had come down sharply, Hidehiko Nishiyama, deputy director general of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, told a news conference on Monday.

Question: Could these highly variable sea readings indicate a plume in the ocean that is being moved back and forth and diluted by currents, etc.?

TEPCO now says the reading in error that sent workers fleeing from Unit #2 was not 10 Million times normal, but only 100,000 times normal. That certainly makes me feel better!

The Tokyo Electric Power Company has announced that it is investigating a radiation reading that sent workers fleeing the Number 2 reactor over the weekend.Officials initially said the water was found to contain 10 million times the amount of radioactive iodine that is normal in the reactor.

They later said the reading was erroneous, adding that number should be 100,000 times, far better than the first results, though still very high.

The air in Unit 2, meanwhile measured at 1,000 millisieverts per hour - four times the limit deemed safe by the government.

Some Monday morning updates...

* A magnitude 6.5 earthquake shakes northern Japan, the latest in a series of aftershocks two weeks after the disaster. Officials warn it will trigger a 50-cm (two-foot) tsunami wave.

"This news story is far from over," said Akira Tokuhiro, professor of mechanical and nuclear engineering at the University of Idaho. "It's not like a flooded basement, you don't just pump it into the street."

The radiation level at the No. 2 reactor yesterday was measured at 1,000 millisieverts an hour, Japan's nuclear safety agency said. A single dose would cause radiation sickness, according to the World Nuclear Association.

This one is good... now it seems that TEPCO is blaming the PM's visit for getting off to a slow start in responding to the crisis...

* Kyodo news agency, quoting a government source, says Prime Minister Naoto Kan's visit to the affected region the day after the disaster delayed TEPCO's response to the unfolding situation because of fears he could be exposed to radiation.

Here is the latest I can find tonight...

The utility company is "re-analyzing the figure after it was pointed out internally and also by the Nuclear Safety Commission that it might be calculated incorrectly." The spokesman, Hiro Hasegawa, said a new figure would be issued sometime after midnight Japan time.

Highlighting the inability of authorities so far to confidently pinpoint the source of the leaks, a key step to stanching them, the government's chief spokesperson said Sunday morning that he wasn't sure where the water was coming from. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, speaking on national broadcaster NHK Sunday, said only that "we will analyze where the highly radioactive water is coming from."

The lack of unity in the message from authorities, with Mr. Nishiyama speculating that the water is likely from the reactor core while Prime Minister Naoto Kan's spokesman declined to go that far, may also add to concern over the government's response nearly two weeks after Mr. Kan appointed himself chief of a crisis team.

http://www.mercuryne...?nclick_check=1

TEPCO says the measurement is not credible, but...

Officials say they still don't know where the radioactive water is coming from, though government spokesman Yukio Edano has said some is "almost certainly" seeping from a cracked reactor core in one of the units.

While the discovery of the high radiation levelsand the evacuation of workers from one reactor unitagain delayed efforts to bring the deeply troubled complex under control, Edano insisted the situation had partially stabilized. "We have somewhat prevented the situation from turning worse," he told reporters Sunday evening. "But the prospects are not improving in a straight line and we've expected twists and turns. The contaminated water is one of them and we'll continue to repair the damage."

On Sunday night, Minoru Ogoda of Japan's nuclear safety agency said each unit could have hundreds of tons of radioactive water. A top TEPCO official acknowledged Sunday it could take a long time to completely clean up the complex. "We cannot say at this time how many months or years it will take," TEPCO Vice President Sakae Muto said, insisting the main goal now is to cool the reactors.

http://www.mercuryne...?nclick_check=1

Measurement a mistake?

The apology came after employees fled the complex's Unit 2 reactor when a reading showed radiation levels had reached 10 million times higher than normal in the reactor's cooling system. Officials said they were so high that the worker taking the measurements had withdrawn before taking a second reading. On Sunday night, though, plant operators said that while the water was contaminated with radiation, the extremely high reading was a mistake.

"The number is not credible," said Tokyo Electric Power Co. spokesman Takashi Kurita. "We are very sorry." He said officials were taking another sample to get accurate levels, but did not know when the results would be announced.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/radiation-levels-reach-new-highs-as-conditions-worsen-for-workers/2011/03/27/AFsMLFiB_story.html

...the latest contamination measurements in water from the No. 2 unit turbine building — adjacent to the reactor building — suggests that there is a rupture in either the containment vessel or in pipes connecting to the reactor, according to nuclear experts. NISA deputy director Hidehiko Nishiyama said there is a “strong possibility” that the water is leaking from the reactor core.

“High levels of cesium and other substances are being detected, which usually should not be found in reactor water,” a Tepco spokesperson said. “There is a high possibility that fuel rods are being damaged.”

“To a layman, you’d be scared to death,” said Lake Barrett, a nuclear engineer who directed the cleanup of Three Mile Island. “You’re working with saltwater around your feet. This is not the way electricians usually work.” Barrett added that cleanup of the radioactive water will eventually require Japanese authorities to use mineralizers or ion exchange columns, used in decontamination. Barrett said there could be 1 million gallons of radioactive water pooling in the Fukushima facility — the result of days of spraying thousands of tons of seawater.

“It will take them years, probably, to get rid of all that water,” Barrett said. “The science is known. But it is a Herculean task.”