Meltdown Likely Under Way At Japan Nuclear Reactor

[pomeloseed]

IAEA reactor status summary

Unit 1:

Reactor pressure Vessel is assumed to be leaking most probably through connected recirculation system (Pump seal LOCA).

Unit 2:

Reactor Pressure Vessel is assumed to be leaking most probably through connected recirculation system (Pump seal LOCA).

Containtment is believed to be damaged.

Unit 3:

Reactor Pressure Vessel is assumed to be leaking most probably through connected recirculation system (Pump seal LOCA).

Containtment is believed to be damaged.

http://www.slideshar...riefing-11-0505

And yet, there are still people who claim nuclear is 'cleaner, safer and cheaper' than other types of power generation.

Who are they? Look no further than the bosses at Thailand's EGAT

Prime Minister Kan takes bold decision

On Tuesday, May 11 Prime Minister Kan took another dramatic step, announcing that Japan would cancel its plans to build new nuclear reactors, and would seek a new national energy policy that puts an increased emphasis on renewable energy and conservation. "We need to start from scratch," Kan said in a press conference. "We need to make nuclear energy safer and do more to promote renewable energy."

Kan's decision means that the government will drop an energy policy released last year, which called for the construction of 14 more nuclear reactors before 2030; that plan called for nuclear to supply 50 percent of the country's energy needs.

In a major development, Chubu Electric Power Co. agreed on Monday May 10 to suspend operation of its Hamaoka nuclear power plant in Shizuoka prefecture, about 200 kilometers southwest of Tokyo, "until further measures to prevent tsunami are completed." The decision came after Prime Minister Kan's May 6 request that the power company cease all operations at the plant, citing concerns over its safety. Kan said the government had predicted that there's an 87 percent chance that a magnitude 8 earthquake will strike the region within the next 30 years.

That's like a family head who notices the roof on his house, made of playdough, is crumbling. 2 months later (after storms continually flood and destroy the house) he announces to his family, "We may not rebuild our roof with playdough. Instead, we will research a better material for building roofs."

[pomeloseed]

Against the backdrop of a sky cluttered with radioactive clouds, it's clearer than ever that nuclear power is not an option we can live with safely.

If ever there were a time to rid the planet of these ticking atomic time bombs amongst us and commit to harnessing safe renewable energy resources, this would be it.

J.T. CASSIDY, Yokohama

Well put, sir. May I add: American futurist Ray Kurzweil accurately predicted that a computer would beat a man at chess, and that a worldwide communications network (the internet) would emerge by the 1990s. He made those predictions years before they came to pass - and years before others perceived of those possibilities.

Kurzweil was recently part of a panel convened by the National Association of Engineers and, together with Google co-founder Larry Page and billionaire investor T. Boone Pickens, concluded that solar energy technology is improving at such a rate that it will soon be cheaper than fossil fuels or nuclear. Here is what Kurzweil said about solar's future:

"One of my primary theses is that information technologies grow exponentially in capability and power and bandwidth. If you buy an iPhone today, it's twice as good as two years ago for half that cost. That is happening with solar energy — it is doubling every two years. Every two years we have twice as much solar energy in the world.

Solar costs are coming down rapidly — we are only a few years away from parity. And then it's going to keep coming down, and more people will be gravitating towards solar. Even those who don't care about environmental issues will go with solar, just because it makes economic sense.

Right now, solar is at half a percent of the world's energy. People tend to dismiss technologies when they are half a percent of the solution. But doubling every two years means it's only eight more doublings before it meets a hundred percent of the world's energy needs. So that's 16 years. People say we're running out of energy. That's only true if we stick with archaic thinking. We are awash in energy from the sun."

from a recent letter published in the Bkk Post - written by Ken Albertsen

[elcent]

To more reactors bite the dust in Japan

Operator to begin work to halt Hamaoka reactors

Chubu Electric Power Company says it will begin work on Friday to halt operations at 2 nuclear reactors at its Hamaoka nuclear power plant in central Japan.

The plant operator on Monday accepted Prime Minister Naoto Kan's request to shutdown the Number 4 and 5 reactors.

Kan cited the risk of the plant being hit by a strong quake that is projected in the region in the next 30 years.

The plant operator says it will begin the shutdown of the Number 4 reactor at 3:30 AM Friday and the Number 5 reactor at 1:20 AM Saturday.

The company says it will take 7 to 8 hours to halt power generation at the reactors, and the reactors will reach a cold shutdown about 24 hours after that.

Chubu Electric says it expects the entire process to be completed on Sunday.

Chubu Electric had been supplying electricity to Tokyo Electric Power Company to help it deal with an electricity shortage due to the accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant triggered by the March 11 quake and tsunami.

It was also supplying power to Kyushu Electric Power Company. Chubu says it stopped these supplies on Wednesday after arranging for other utilities to provide power.

With the halt of the number 4 and 5 reactors, all 5 reactors at the Hamaoka plant will be out of operation.

Reactors 1 and 2 are already waiting to be decommissioned, while reactor number 3 had been stopped for a regular inspection.

Thursday, May 12, 2011 13:09 +0900 (JST)

[elcent]

Water likely leaking from No.1 reactor

Tokyo Electric Power Company says water may be leaking from breaches in the No.1 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, causing a sharp drop in the water level inside the reactor.

Tokyo Electric sent workers inside the building to adjust the water gauge of the reactor.

The utility had suspected the gauge wasn't working properly because the water level hasn't been rising despite pumping in 150 tons of water daily to cool the reactor.

On Thursday morning, it was found that the water level was more than one meter below the bottom of the fuel rods, suggesting a large volume of water is leaking into the containment vessel.

The utility company also believes that the water is leaking from the containment vessel into the reactor building. This is because the estimated volume of water inside the containment vessel appears to be less than what leaked into it from the reactor.

Tokyo Electric says temperatures at the bottom of the reactor are between 100 and 120 degrees Celsius, suggesting that the fuel has fallen and is being cooled in the water below.

The utility says it does not believe the fuel has completely melted and spilled through the bottom of the reactor. It adds that instead, the fuel appears to be being cooled inside the reactor.

Tokyo Electric says the company will now have to review its ongoing procedure of filling the containment vessel with water to cool the reactor.

It says it will reveal a new plan on Tuesday next week when it is set to announce a revised schedule for containing the emergency.

Work to cool the reactors had made the most progress in the No.1 reactor, with the volume of injected water being increased. The cooling of the reactors is the most important step in the containment process.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters that the reactor appears to be stable because it's been steadily cooled for a long period. But he said the condition of the reactor must be reassessed as some figures from the gauge are contradictory.

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said that if the latest data is accurate, it seems parts of the fuel have melted and accumulated at the bottom of the reactor. But it added that it believes the fuel rods are being cooled.

Thursday, May 12, 2011 15:08 +0900 (JST)

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/12_23.html

[elcent]

New radioactive leak raises questions

Highly radioactive water was found leaking into the sea from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant on Wednesday. It's now been revealed that contaminated water levels in the No. 3 reactor's turbine building were already alarmingly high by Sunday.

Tokyo Electric Power Company plugged the leak with concrete after it found highly radioactive water flowing into the sea through a pit.

Radioactive cesium 620,000 times higher than the government-set safety limit was detected from the leaked water.

The contaminated water was streaming from the outlet of a pipe for electric cables.

The leak is thought to have stemmed from pooled water in the turbine building of the No. 3 reactor.

TEPCO says it found that waste water levels in the facility had risen to a point where leakage was feared on Sunday.

The company says it doesn't know when the leak began, but that it will investigate if the monitoring of water levels was appropriate. The problem raises the question of whether the utility wasn't able to prevent the latest leak.

The utility is planning to soon begin transferring radioactive water accumulated in the turbine building to a provisional storage facility. It is now checking for other possible leaks.

Highly radioactive water poured into the sea from a crack in a pit outside the No.2 reactor in early April.

On Thursday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the renewed leaking of radioactive materials into the sea was extremely regrettable.

He says the government apologizes to the local residents, the fishing industry and neighboring countries.

Edano also said he had instructed TEPCO to investigate how the leak occurred, and that the company must take measures to prevent another episode.

Thursday, May 12, 2011 13:09 +0900 (JST)

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/12_16.html

no end of the desaster in sight.

[elcent]

As part of monitoring activity of the surrounding environment, we

conducted an analysis of plutonium contained in the soil collected on

March 21st and 22nd at the 5 spots in Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power

Station. As a result, plutonium 238, 239 and 240 were detected.

follow the press releases from today here http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/index-e.html

looks like worse things are looming. Realize the sudden bold releases from today

Edited May 12, 2011 by elcent

[pomeloseed]

Crew are pumping large amounts of water in, yet levels are falling below the rods. Earlier we had several posts on this thread by a poster who resides in Japan. He said, in effect, "what's the big deal? The radioactive water is in the containment area."

All I have to say is, water has an odd way of seeping to all sorts of odd places. We've already seen how thousands of tons of extremely radioactive water was leaked from the plant into the sea in recent weeks. That's just what we can see, and it could be ongoing. The amounts of water leaking elsewhere (into the ground, under concrete pads or via vapor emissions, etc) could be vast.

Do the bosses at EGAT take such things in to account when they tally the possible costs of Thailand going nuclear? Doubtful.

[unblocktheplanet]

It's not as much fun when everybody thinks the same. However, nuclear proponents should know when they're beat.

May 12 radiation cloud data

http://www.dutchsinse.com/blog/?p=759

plus video:

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=haMePBnkJhY

It doesn't take a weatherman or a conspiracy theorist to spy that the Norsk Institute has named their Fukushima observation "Zardoz"--obviously a scientist with a sense of humour, albeit, a sense of humour like "Fukushima--It's not the end of the world" sort.

Even some Sean Connery fans may not remember the post-nuclear 1974 John Boorman film: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zardoz

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Original_movie_poster_for_the_film_Zardoz.jpg

One may not have to speculate what "dutchsinse" is smoking, but it's impossible to counter his sources.

Happy Friday the 13th...

[elcent]

nearly one third of the US nuclear powerplants fail in emergency testing plans.

Inspectors are worried and now even NRC technicians say in a case of an emergency some equipment and plans will likely fail.

Charlie Miller said that response plans for emergencies need to be upgraded.

Otherwise the usual problems like no end storage for Americas nuclear waste and only discussions for temporary end storage fot the next decades on land and not underground. Over 10 billion $$$ spent without results in sight.

[elcent]

The worst case scenario became reality. Earlier TEPCO admitted a leak and the meltdown of fuel rods which have burned through the bottom already. It can't hold any more water now.

NISA: no need to flood No.1 reactor

An official of Japan's nuclear safety agency has suggested that a nuclear fuel meltdown at one of the damaged Fukushima reactors means that filling the reactor's container with water may be meaningless.

Hidehiko Nishiyama told reporters on Friday that melted rods at the bottom of the No. 1 reactor are being cooled by a small amount of water.

He said he doubts that it's necessary to flood the containment vessel entirely, as the plant operator has been trying to do.

The operator, TEPCO, said on Thursday that most of the fuel rods in the reactor are believed to have melted and sunk to the bottom of the reactor's pressure vessel.

TEPCO says the melted fuel has apparently cooled, even though much of the injected water is leaking through holes at the bottom of the vessel.

Under a plan decided last month, the utility was to fill up the containment vessel with water and set up a system to circulate the water through a heat exchanger.

Nishiyama said TEPCO need only inject water to a height that would allow the system to work.

He said the utility will likely change its strategy and inject water to the minimum necessary level.

Friday, May 13, 2011 16:08 +0900 (JST)

[elcent]

get ready for more ... after the above revelation ...

Radioactive cesium detected in tea leaves

Radioactive material above designated safety limits has been detected in tea leaves harvested in 5 municipalities in Kanagawa Prefecture, neighboring Tokyo.

The prefectural government checked samples of leaves harvested in 15 municipalities in the region.

Officials say that samples from 5 of those were found to contain unsafe levels of radioactive cesium.

They say 780 becquerels of cesium were detected in tea leaves in Odawara City, 740 becquerels in Kiyokawa Village, 680 becquerels in Yugawara Town, 670 becquerels in Aikawa Town and 530 becquerels in Manazuru Town.

The Kanagawa prefectural government has asked the affected municipalities and the local farmers' cooperative to voluntarily halt shipments for the time being.

It says it will repeat the tests in these towns and villages when tea leaves are harvested next month.

The survey comes after 570 becquerels of radioactive cesium per kilogram -- exceeding the provisional state limit of 500 -- were detected in products from Minami Ashigara City on May 9th.

Friday, May 13, 2011 21:27 +0900 (JST) http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/13_39.html

[Puschl]

It's not as much fun when everybody thinks the same. However, nuclear proponents should know when they're beat.

May 12 radiation cloud data

http://www.dutchsinse.com/blog/?p=759

plus video:

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=haMePBnkJhY

It doesn't take a weatherman or a conspiracy theorist to spy that the Norsk Institute has named their Fukushima observation "Zardoz"--obviously a scientist with a sense of humour, albeit, a sense of humour like "Fukushima--It's not the end of the world" sort.

Even some Sean Connery fans may not remember the post-nuclear 1974 John Boorman film: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zardoz

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Original_movie_poster_for_the_film_Zardoz.jpg

One may not have to speculate what "dutchsinse" is smoking, but it's impossible to counter his sources.

Happy Friday the 13th...

Without further documentation, those files on zardoz.nilu.no/~flexpart/ should not be taken too literally. The caption clearly states simulation. Such models are typically being run with an arbitrary source term. Comparison between actual measurements at distant locations and model predictions then can be used to estimate the actual source term. However, uncertainties usually are big. You may have seen the figures at zamg.at, with an order of magnitude uncertainty.

It is not even said explicitly what the data represents. The units are Bq/m^2, which usually is used for fallout quantification. However, Xe-133 is a gas, so that makes no sense. The caption 'column: all' could indicate that it refers to the total air column above one square meter of ground. So to get Bq/m^3 air concentrations you'd have to divide by something like 20 000, but that's wild speculation.

If NILU were part of a conspiracy, would they allow a server named zardoz in their network? Don't freak out because some computer nerd in their IT department is, uhm, also a movie nerd.

For the record, I'm a proponent of sustainable energy sources (e.g. concentrated solar). My points against NPPs are the unsolved waste storage problems, the massive local effects of accidents (admittedly irrational plane crash vs. car accident syndrome) and the cost-ineffectiveness of timely decommissioning (stretching reactor run times beyond their scheduled expiry dates, as was the case with Daiichi 1-4, among many others).

[elcent]

TEPCO to cover No.1 reactor building

Tokyo Electric Power Company has started preparations to cover the damaged Number 1 reactor building at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. The company aims to decrease the amount of nuclear materials leaking into the air.

TEPCO has been working to reduce the leakage of those substances while cooling down the reactors.

It has been clearing contaminated rubble and spraying a chemical hardening agent to prevent the spread of radioactive dust.

TEPCO is going to cover the Number 1 reactor building, which lost its roof in a hydrogen explosion in March. On Friday, workers cleared rubble so that a big crane can be set up near the building.

TEPCO says a polyester sheet will be attached to steel frames, enclosing the 50-meter-tall building. The company says the cover can withstand strong winds. TEPCO also says it will install a ventilator with a filter to capture radioactive materials that would otherwise be concentrated inside.

To minimize radiation exposure among its workers, the company says the steel frames will be pre-assembled as much as possible, shortening the set up time at the plant.

Saturday, May 14, 2011 06:01 +0900 (JST) http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/14_02.html

this is the unit where meltdown was confirmed. It melted through the basement.

[Chopperboy]

Core of reactor 1 melted 16 hours after quake

New analysis shows damage to fuel rods was surprisingly quick

Kyodo

The meltdown at reactor No. 1 in Fukushima happened more quickly than feared, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Sunday in a new analysis.

The core of the heavily damaged reactor at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant is believed to have melted 16 hours after the March 11 mega-quake and tsunami rocked the complex in northeastern Japan.

Preliminary analysis shows that No. 1 had already entered a critical state by 6:50 a.m. on March 12, with most of its fuel having melted and fallen to the bottom of the pressure vessel, the plant operator said. Tepco released data Thursday showing some of the fuel rods had melted.

The reactor automatically halted operations immediately after the 2:46 p.m. quake, but the water level in the reactor dropped and the temperature began rising at around 6 p.m. The damage to the fuel rods had begun by 7:30 p.m., with most of them having melted by 6:50 a.m. the following day, the utility said.

While the utility had planned to bring the nation's worst nuclear accident under control in around six to nine months from mid-April, it now has no choice but to abandon a plan to flood the containment vessel of reactor 1 because holes have been created by the melted fuel, an adviser to Prime Minister Naoto Kan said earlier Sunday.

Nevertheless, Goshi Hosono, the top official tasked with handling the nuclear crisis, told TV programs the government had yet to revise the timetable for bringing the crisis to an end.

Asked about initial plans to completely submerge the 4-meter-tall fuel rods by entombing the vessel in water, Hosono said, "We should not cause the (radioactive) water to flow into the sea by taking such a measure."

Hosono said the government will instead consider ways to decontaminate the water being used to cool the fuel so that it can be recirculated instead of letting it flood the facility.

Hosono made the remarks after Tepco discovered a pool of water more than 4 meters deep and exceeding 3,000 tons in the basement of reactor No. 1. This suggests that the water, which is likely highly radioactive, is seeping through the holes after being injected into the reactor core.

From there, it is probably leaking from either the containment vessel or the suppression pool, which enclose the pressure vessel, and into the piping.

|

[Chopperboy]

In a related revelation concerning a major mixup after the six-reactor complex lost power, Tepco and other sources said the same day that the utility had assembled 69 power supply vehicles at the plant by March 12 but that these proved virtually useless.

The inability to use the vehicles delayed the damage control work at the plant, significantly worsening the emergency.

Tepco earlier said it had tried to connect the vehicles to power-receiving equipment needed to operate the water pumps intended to cool down the reactors. But this failed because the equipment was submerged in seawater from the tsunami, which posed the risk that the equipment would short out.

Tepco's account conflicts with the one detailed by the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, which mentioned the first arrival of such a vehicle on the evening of March 11 but stopped mentioning it the following day, as the focus of attention had shifted to the need to release radioactive steam to relieve pressure that had built up inside the containment vessel of reactor 1.

The different versions of the story given by Tepco and the agency might come to a head as investigations progress to determine why efforts to immediately contain the crisis failed.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/rss/nn20110516a1.html

[Chopperboy]

'WE HAVE A PROBLEM'

Details emerged about the state of the No. 1 reactor in the past week. Progress to bring the unit under control has been seen as a test case for how quickly work on three other damaged reactors can proceed.

Among the revelations: the fuel in the reactor melted down after the earthquake and dropped to the bottom of the pressure vessel at the reactor's core about 16 hours after the quake struck.

A robot on the first floor of the reactor building on Friday recorded radiation of 2,000 millisieverts per hour. At that level workers could stay in the vicinity for no longer than eight minutes before exceeding exposure limits.

In addition, the reactor's containment vessel has leaked large amounts of radioactive water into the reactor building.

On Saturday, a Tepco worker was able to peer into the basement of the No.1 reactor and saw it had filled to almost half its 11-metre (35-foot) height -- an estimated 3,000 tonnes, larger than the volume of an Olympic swimming pool.

Critics have said that pumping in large amounts of water -- more than 10,000 tonnes in No. 1 reactor alone - could pose grave environmental risks.

Among the major risks ahead, experts say, is the prospect of another hydrogen explosion like those believed to have destroyed parts of the buildings housing reactors No. 3 and No. 4.

Officials also remain worried about structural damage to the No. 4 reactor and whether its storage pool for spent fuel rods has sufficient support. A strong aftershock could topple the structure and spill and scatter radioactive fuel on the ground, compounding the crisis, experts have said.

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2011/5/15/worldupdates/2011-05-15T164158Z_01_NOOTR_RTRMDNC_0_-570244-2&sec=Worldupdates

[Chopperboy]

Fukushima - One Step Forward and Four Steps Back as Each Unit Challenged by New Problems

Arnie Gundersen reiterates the "prompt moderated criticality" hypothesis - cites high levels of I-131 in the Unit 3 stored fuel pool. Since the explosion was two months ago, and given the half-life of this isotope, says it is hard to explain the current level unless there was an original fission event to produce enough I-131 for several half-lives.

Also he says that the fact Unit 4 SFP storage racks are intact means that physical fragments of plutonium MOX fuel, found 2 km from the reactor site, could only have come from the explosion of Unit 3 Spent fuel pool. And calculates that a projectile distance two kilometers implies a supersonic launch velocity in the explosion. (Detonation in which the shock wave expanded faster than the speed of sound)

http://www.fairewinds.com/

Edited May 16, 2011 by Chopperboy

[midas]

There ya go !! So anything else that should be revealed .......?

TEPCO admits nuclear meltdown occurred at Fukushima reactor 16 hours after quake

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) admitted for the first time on May 15 that most of the fuel in one of its nuclear reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant had melted only about 16 hours after the March 11 earthquake struck a wide swath of northeastern Japan and triggered a devastating tsunami.

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110516p2a00m0na028000c.html

Edited May 17, 2011 by midas

[Chopperboy]

Fukushima nuke reactor cooling failed before tsunami

An emergency cooling system of the No. 1 reactor at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant malfunctioned after the March 11 earthquake and before the tsunami hit, data released by plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. have revealed.

According to a large cache of data concerning plant operations from March 11 to 14 released Monday by Tepco, the No. 1 reactor's isolation condenser, which operates on direct-current power, began to malfunction shortly after the Great East Japan Earthquake struck the Tohoku and Kanto regions.

Tepco on Sunday (April 15) announced that after the tsunami completely knocked out the cooling system, fuel rods in the No. 1 reactor melted down 16 hours after the earthquake hit at 2:46pm on March 11. If the cooling system had operated normally, the meltdown could have been delayed, according to some nuclear experts.

The economy, trade and industry ministry's nuclear and industrial safety agency demanded Tepco release the data, which include water levels within reactor containment vessels and radiation levels for several days after the earthquake, in addition to operator logs and operation records.

According to the data, the No. 1 reactor was put into emergency shutdown immediately after the earthquake when control rods were inserted into the reactor core. The isolation condenser was then automatically activated at 2:52pm, initiating cooling and pressure reduction inside the reactor.

However, around 3pm, only about 10 minutes after it began operating, the isolation condenser stopped functioning temporarily, and then went on and off intermittently as valves between the condenser and the pressure containment vessel were opened and closed, according to operation records.

According to Tepco, the pressure within the reactor fluctuated violently immediately after the earthquake. The cause of these fluctuations is not known, but Tepco suspects workers manually suspended the condenser to stabilise the pressure.

When the tsunami hit, an emergency diesel generator that started after the earthquake was disabled, totally cutting off DC power. Other cooling devices failed, and temperature and pressure data for the No. 1 reactor became unavailable for a time.

http://www.asianewsnet.net/home/news.php?id=18975

[Chopperboy]

Meltdown may have occurred also at Nos. 2, 3 reactors

TOKYO — An adviser to Prime Minister Naoto Kan said Monday that the operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant had failed to inject water into the Nos. 2 and 3 reactors for more than six hours after the March 11 massive earthquake and ensuing tsunami.

Goshi Hosono, tasked with handling the nuclear crisis, said at a press conference that Tokyo Electric Power Co had not been able to cool down the reactors’ cores due to loss of external power for a long time after the quake, acknowledging that fuel in the vessels might have largely melted ‘‘in the worst-case scenario.’‘

TEPCO is slated to release on Tuesday an updated roadmap for bringing under control Japan’s worst nuclear accident based on new information about the plant’s condition.

Hosono has said that it has no choice but to abandon an initial plan to flood and cool the No. 1 reactor’s containment vessel as holes have been created in the pressure vessel by the melted fuel.

The government will also unveil the same day its own version of a roadmap that will outline measures on how to deal comprehensively with the crisis amid growing discontent by lawmakers and the public over the government’s handling of it.

http://blog.limkitsiang.com/2011/05/17/meltdown-may-have-occurred-also-at-nos-2-3-reactors/comment-page-1/

[Chopperboy]

Fairewinds - Fukushima update

[Chopperboy]

What a Nuclear Corium Looks Like

Corium oozing out of the pipes at Chernobyl where it stopped

Still glowing after all these years and to 'hot' to get close to it.

[Chopperboy]

Interview with Akira Tokuhiro, Nuclear Engineer: Fukushima and the Mass Media

Vivian Norris Phd,

There are only a handful of Japanese nuclear engineers working and teaching in the U.S. What Professor Tokuhiro was able to add also included a strong dose of a deep understanding of the Japanese culture. "There is a cultural element in this. The Japanese do not want to be embarrassed". He added that TEPCO is a large entity which only has to answer to the Prime Minister. He added that it is a bit of the "... Only small people pay taxes mentality". The mass media in Japan is only given the information TEPCO and the government want to give them. Labor practices in Japan, he says, are quite brutal and when you get to the bottom of the labor force, those at the top of society do not really care about them."

The numbers are disturbingly higher than we have been lead to believe, the number of homes in the villages which are contaminated, the rice paddies, the fact that the "official" six to nine month cleanup is virtually impossible, no matter how much they do accomplish... all of this is what has being kept off the front pages of the mass media.

"They need to tell people it will take at least 10, maybe 20 years, at least 10 if not 20, or even 30 Billion dollars and at least 10,000 people working on this, " he repeated, "This is the most important thing they must tell people. They must be honest with the evacuees".

Virtually any nuclear engineer connected with the industry he or she supports cannot be fully trusted right now to give us the full truth about Fukushima because the truth is simply too damaging to the nuclear industry and they know it. .

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vivian-norris-de-montaigu/interview-with-akira-toku_b_863297.html

[Chopperboy]

Worker Dies on May 14th

A sub-contractor working on the Fukushima Daiichi plant site has died, but his death is not thought to be a direct result of the nuclear accident there.

The worker had been working on the drainage system of the centralised radioactive waste store when he fell ill. He was taken to the on-site medical centre, where he lost consciousness and stopped breathing. Shortly after being transferred to a nearby hospital, the worker died. Tests showed that the worker had not been contaminated with radiation.

[Chopperboy]

Keeping it covered

How the cover should look

Tepco said that it started preparatory work today for the construction of a cover for unit 1, whose reactor building was severely damaged by a hydrogen explosion on 12 March. The cover is to be built as a temporary measure to prevent the release of radioactive substances from the unit until further measures, including radiation shielding, are implemented. Other such covers are planned at the other damaged Fukushima reactor buildings under Tepco's roadmap for the plant's restoration, announced in mid-April.

The company announced that it has started initial work on the project, including levelling the ground so that crawler cranes can be brought onto site for installing the cover. The installation of the cover for the reactor building will begin next month. Tepco said that the use of crawler cranes would minimize the exposure dose of workers and shorten the work period.

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS-Fukushima_fuel_melt_confirmed-1605115.html

[Chopperboy]

Japan nuke company's chief reportedly resigning

President of operator for tsunami-hit nuclear power plant stepping down because of crisis response, Japanese paper reports

TOKYO - The utility behind the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl is almost certain to report massive losses Friday, as expectations grow for its president to step down in disgrace.

Japanese media reports said Tokyo Electric Power Co. President Masataka Shimizu will resign to take responsibility for the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Dai-ichi power complex in northeastern Japan.

It is common for executives at major Japanese companies to resign for even smaller scandals and other fiascos. It has been almost taken for granted here that Shimizu would eventually have to resign.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/05/19/501364/main20064510.shtml

[Crushdepth]

Among the revelations: the fuel in the reactor melted down after the earthquake and dropped to the bottom of the pressure vessel at the reactor's core about 16 hours after the quake struck.

A robot on the first floor of the reactor building on Friday recorded radiation of 2,000 millisieverts per hour. At that level workers could stay in the vicinity for no longer than eight minutes before exceeding exposure limits.

In addition, the reactor's containment vessel has leaked large amounts of radioactive water into the reactor building.

Meltdown may have occurred also at Nos. 2, 3 reactors

Nothing to worry about, then.

physical fragments of plutonium MOX fuel, found 2 km from the reactor site, could only have come from the explosion of Unit 3 Spent fuel pool.

Has this been confirmed? ie. that plutonium has been splattered around the landscape?

[Chopperboy]

Nuclear plant workers suffer internal radiation exposure after visiting Fukushima

A photograph shows a whole-body counter.

The government has discovered thousands of cases of workers at nuclear power plants outside Fukushima Prefecture suffering from internal exposure to radiation after they visited the prefecture, the head of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said.

Most of the workers who had internal exposure to radiation visited Fukushima after the nuclear crisis broke out following the March 11 quake and tsunami, and apparently inhaled radioactive substances scattered by hydrogen explosions at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant.

The revelation has prompted local municipalities in Fukushima to consider checking residents' internal exposure to radiation.

Nobuaki Terasaka, head of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, told the House of Representatives Budget Committee on May 16 that there were a total of 4,956 cases of workers suffering from internal exposure to radiation at nuclear power plants in the country excluding the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, and 4,766 of them involved workers originally from Fukushima who had visited the prefecture after the nuclear crisis. Terasaka revealed the data in his response to a question from Mito Kakizawa, a lawmaker from Your Party.

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said it received the data from power companies across the country that measured the workers' internal exposure to radiation with "whole-body counters" and recorded levels of 1,500 counts per minute (cpm) or higher. In 1,193 cases, workers had internal exposure to radiation of more than 10,000 cpm. Those workers had apparently returned to their homes near the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant or had moved to other nuclear power plants from the Fukushima No. 1 and 2 nuclear power plants.

According to Kakizawa, one worker at the Shika Nuclear Power Plant operated by Hokuriku Electric Power Co. in Ishikawa Prefecture returned to his home in Kawauchi, Fukushima Prefecture, on March 13 and stayed there for several hours. He then stayed in Koriyama in the prefecture with his family for one night before moving out of Fukushima. On March 23, he underwent a test at the Shika Nuclear Power Plant that showed his internal exposure to radiation had reached 5,000 cpm. He was thus instructed by the company to remain on standby. The radiation reading dropped below 1,500 cpm two days later, and then he returned to work.

Another male worker in his 40s told the Mainichi that he had waited at his home, about 30 kilometers from the crippled nuclear plant, following a hydrogen explosion at one of the troubled reactors. He later went through a test which showed his internal exposure to radiation had reached 2,500 cpm. "I think most of the radiation derives from iodine (which has a short half-life), and therefore the radiation reading is expected to drop. But I am worried," the man said.

The local government in Nihonmatsu, Fukushima Prefecture, has received inquiries about internal exposure to radiation from its citizens. In response, it is considering selecting infants and people working mainly outdoors and measuring their internal radiation exposure levels using whole-body counters, officials said.

Internal exposure to radiation lasts longer and carries more risks than external exposure. People are deemed to have had internal exposure if whole-body counters detect over 1,500 cpm of radiation from them. If more than 100,000 cpm of radiation is detected from body surfaces, decontamination is said to be necessary.

A special earthquake-resistant building that serves as a base for emergency workers at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant had its doors strained by hydrogen explosions at the No. 1 and 3 reactors in March, making it easier for radioactive substances to come in. "We had meals there, so I think radioactive substances came into our bodies," a male worker in his 40s said. "We just drink beer and wash them down," he added.

A 34-year-old male worker, who entered the nuclear complex earlier in May, voiced concerns over the lack of a sufficient system to check internal exposure to radiation. "Most of the workers around me have not undergone checkups at all. Those in their 20s are particularly worried," he said.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), the operator of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, is to check workers' internal exposure to radiation whenever deemed necessary, in addition to regular checks conducted every three months. But as of May 16, only about 1,400 workers have gone through checkups -- roughly 20 percent of the total number of workers. And only 40 of the workers have had their test results confirmed. The highest level of radiation to which a worker has been exposed so far is 240.8 millisieverts, and 39 millisieverts of radiation was from internal exposure.

(Mainichi Japan) May 21, 2011

[ronz28]

A group of more than 200 Japanese pensioners are volunteering to tackle the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima power station. ... "Even if I were exposed to radiation, cancer could take 20 or 30 years or longer to develop. Therefore us older ones have less chance of getting cancer."..."We are not kamikaze. The kamikaze were something strange, no risk management there. They were going to die. But we are going to come back. We have to work but never die." http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13598607

[JetsetBkk]

A group of more than 200 Japanese pensioners are volunteering to tackle the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima power station. ... "Even if I were exposed to radiation, cancer could take 20 or 30 years or longer to develop. Therefore us older ones have less chance of getting cancer."..."We are not kamikaze. The kamikaze were something strange, no risk management there. They were going to die. But we are going to come back. We have to work but never die." http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13598607

I read that article yesterday. What a wonderfully selfless act. Almost heroic.