Meltdown Likely Under Way At Japan Nuclear Reactor

[Lite Beer]

More on Japan reactor setback: Radioactive gas will be released to ease pressure/RT@BreakingNews

[jfchandler]

Morning Headlines from Kyodo News:

Current evacuation area not expected to change: nuke agency13:06 20 March

Steps to reduce No. 3 reactor's pressure to be taken swiftly: nuke agency13:02 20 March

Pressure at No. 3 reactor's containment vessel rising: nuke agency12:54 20 March

Northeastern Japan quake leaves more than 20,000 dead or missing12:45 20 March

Radioactive iodine detected in Tokyo, vicinity but no health risk: gov't11:56 20 March

Iodine, cesium found in tap water in northern Ibaraki, no health risk11:34 20 March

Quake-tsunami death toll to top 15,000 in Miyagi: local police chief

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/

Edited March 20, 2011 by jfchandler

[jfchandler]

1st water sprayed at Fukushima's No. 4 reactor

TOKYO, March 20, Kyodo News

Japanese authorities shot water into a spent-fuel pool of the reactor No. 4 of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant Sunday for the first time since the reactor's cooling system failed following last week's powerful earthquake.

The operator also stepped up efforts to reactivate the cooling system of the reactors No. 1 and 2 as power cables were connected to them, but the International Atomic Energy Agency chief indicated it was premature to have an optimistic view on the future of the troubled plant.

The Ground Self-Defense Force sprayed about 80 tons of water from a vehicle into the pool for nearly one hour until 9:30 a.m., according to the Defense Ministry.

The move came after the Tokyo Fire Department shot water into a spent-fuel storage pool of the No. 3 reactor in an overnight operation that lasted more than 13 hours until 3:40 a.m.

More than 2,000 tons of water is believed to have been put into the No. 3 reactor's pool, exceeding the pool's capacity of 1,400 tons. Fuel rods used at the reactor were plutonium-uranium mixed oxide fuel, known as MOX, said to be harder to control than normal fuel rods made from uranium.

MORE: http://english.kyodo...1/03/79712.html

Edited March 20, 2011 by jfchandler

[Lite Beer]

Japan beefs up efforts to cool troubled nuclear reactors

Tokyo - Japanese military fire trucks showered tons of water onto an overheating nuclear reactor for about one hour Sunday morning, the fourth day of the operation, in hopes of averting a potential meltdown in north-eastern Japan.

Overnight, a Tokyo Fire Department truck spent more than 13 hours spraying water at the fuel storage pool on reactor number 3 at the nuclear power plant in Fukushima, which was damaged by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. The truck had originally been scheduled to spray water for seven hours.

More than 2,000 tons of water was believed to have been dumped over reactor 3 until 3:40 am (18:40 GMT Saturday). The amount of water exceeded the pool's capacity of 1,400 tons.

The fire department truck is to douse reactor 4, another part of the six-nuclear-reactor complex on Sunday evening.

Meanwhile, Tokyo Electric Power Corp, the plant's operator, said the company was to restore electricity to the buildings of reactors 1 and 2 as early as later Sunday to reactivate the cooling system for their spent fuel

-- The Nation 2011-03-20

[jfchandler]

The latest update from IAEA re radiation monitoring:

2. Radiation Monitoring Radiation levels in major Japanese cities have not changed significantly since yesterday.

The IAEA radiation monitoring team took measurements at seven different locations in Tokyo and in the Kanagawa and Chiba Prefectures. Dose rates were well below those which are dangerous to human health.

The monitoring team are now on their way to Aizu Wakamatsu City, which is 97 km west of the Fukushima nuclear power plant. They have just provided initial measurements from three additional locations.

Measurements made by Japan in a number of locations have shown the presence of radionuclides - ie isotopes such as Iodine-131 and Caesium-137 - on the ground.

This has implications for food and agriculture in affected areas. The IAEA and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) are consulting with the Japanese authorities on measures being taken in these areas related to food and agriculture.

The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare has announced that radiation levels that exceeded legal limits had been detected in milk produced in the Fukushima area and in certain vegetables in Ibaraki. They have requested the Bureau of Sanitation at the Fukishima Prefectural Office, after conducting an investigation of the relevant information, to take necessary measures, such as identifying the provider of these samples and places where the same lots were distributed and banning sales based on the Food Hygiene Law.

http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/tsunamiupdate01.html

[brahmburgers]

Japan is a "hi-tech" well organised country, that has spent a lot of time, thought and money on dealing with earthquakes.... Imagine if this happened in another country with nuclear power plants!

.... or a country which wants nuclear plants, yet has armory explosions or weapons/ammo stolen from military bases - every two months or so.

EGAT (Thailand's gov't company which wants Thailand to go nuclear) often publicized the truism that "nuclear will not burn any fossil fuels nor generate any greenhouse gases" A-hem (throat clearing prelude...), think about the large amounts of fossil fuels being used currently at the crippled N plant in Japan. Also; nuclear plants need vast amounts of steel and cement. Tons of fossil fuels are needed to fabricate, ship and apply such materials. Then there's mining/refining/shipping the U, plus plant maintenance, dealing with spent rods and decommissioning - ....more hundreds of tons of fossil fuels. So much for no greenhouse gases.

[jfchandler]

An interesting article on the workers now working at the Fukushima plant:

Asahi.com (Asahi Shimbun)

580 on front line in battle at Fukushima nuclear plant

2011/03/20

In a second-floor room of Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s main office in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward, about 100 people watch the events unfold on a large screen.

What they are witnessing is every operation at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant to cool reactor cores, keep spent fuel rods submerged and bring much needed power to the crippled facility.

"I feel like crying as I see the harsh conditions facing my colleagues at the site," said a TEPCO employee in the room.

Of the 800 workers at the plant when the Great East Japan Earthquake struck on March 11, 750 left on Tuesday after a fire broke out at the No. 4 reactor.

The remaining 50 members stayed amid the ever-present danger of high radiation levels to try to bring the situation under control and prevent a meltdown.

They were dubbed the "Fukushima 50" by U.S. and European media.

"They are the faceless 50, unnamed operators who stayed behind," The New York Times said.

But they have been increasingly receiving help.

The workers on the front line of the battle include employees of TEPCO and subsidiaries Toden Kogyo Co. and Tokyo Electric Power Environmental Engineering Co., as well as employees from Toshiba Corp. and Hitachi Ltd., which constructed the power plant.

Workers from the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in Niigata Prefecture and other places have joined them in the operation.

By Friday morning, about 580 workers were at the site, including those installing cables to bring electricity to the site.

The workers wear full-body protective suits and masks. Everyone wears a dosimeter around the clock to measure radiation levels. The device sets off an alarm if radiation doses reach 80 percent of the maximum allowable daily limit.

The workers take turns performing such laborious tasks as injecting water into the reactors and storage pools and opening valves to relieve pressure in the container.

Scattered debris from the explosion of a building covering one of the reactors has hampered their work.

And dangerous radiation levels have on occasion forced the workers to retreat from the reactors.

Some of the workers have now been reassigned to deal with potential problems at the No. 5 and No. 6 reactors.

The efforts have taken their toll.

More than 20 workers at the site have been injured since the quake and tsunami struck on March 11. One worker was seriously injured when he opened a valve to release steam from the containment vessel.

The local task force for TEPCO's nuclear plants in Fukushima Prefecture is stationed at a earthquake-resistant building in the mountainside.

The task force is in constant contact with TEPCO's emergency headquarters in Tokyo. The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency has its office in a separate room of the same building.

In the headquarters, TEPCO President Masataka Shimizu sits at a round table in the center of the room. Workers in charge of restoration and measuring operations sit at desks surrounding the round table.

They have noticed that some pressure meters and water-level gauges in the pressure and containment vessels are no longer functioning.

"I am thinking what we should do, recalling what happened at Three Mile Island (in 1979) and the (1986) Chernobyl nuclear disaster," a TEPCO senior official said.

http://www.asahi.com...1103190154.html

Edited March 20, 2011 by jfchandler

[asiawatcher]

Irrespective of build issues, structural problems, and Govt ducking and weaving like the Energy Commission, you heart simply has to go out to the Japanese people, who will be innocent victims of the nuclear age. The world needs energy - perhaps better to have built (or rebuild) on main lands rather than islands and power undersea connections to connect whilst selling to other countries. The comment about imagine if this wasn't Japan is a scary thought. i.e. North Korea!

[jfchandler]

Temporary housing construction begins in quake-stricken areas

Asahi.com (Asahi Shimbun)

2011/03/20

Relief workers begin putting up temporary housing units in Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, on Saturday. (Yasuhiro Sugimoto)

RIKUZENTAKATA, Iwate Prefecture--Saturday marked the start of a massive effort to provide temporary housing to people displaced by the Great East Japan Earthquake and the catastrophic tsunami that it triggered.

MORE: http://www.asahi.com...1103190253.html

Edited March 20, 2011 by jfchandler

[Deeral]

Japan is a "hi-tech" well organised country, that has spent a lot of time, thought and money on dealing with earthquakes....

Imagine if this happened in another country with nuclear power plants!

There's a movie on you tube, where a German camera team was in a nuclear power plant to watch an emergency exercise. But a real alarm went on while the team was still there. Nobody had a plan what to do.

Finally the alarm was gone, but came back after 15 minutes. The scary thing is that people were discussing if it could be a valve.

None of them knew what to do. This went on until they had to switch off their camera. :jap:

Japan's nuclear industry has had a rather chequered history even in the last decade - so I should repeat - imagine if this sort of stuff happens in a less "organised" country?If Japan which apparently gets 75% of their power from nuclear sources, can't get their shit together you do you expect can????

[whybother]

Japan's nuclear industry has had a rather chequered history even in the last decade - so I should repeat - imagine if this sort of stuff happens in a less "organised" country?If Japan which apparently gets 75% of their power from nuclear sources, can't get their shit together you do you expect can????

Do you mean, what would happen in a country that got hit by a 9 magnitude earthquake and a 10 metre tsunami?

Do any other countries have nuclear power plants in such high risk locations?

[jfchandler]

Foreign governments frustrated with Japan

The Yomiuri Shimbun

March 20, 2011

With concern growing over radiation leaks at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, some foreign countries are increasingly frustrated with what they say is the Japanese government's handling of the crisis and the insufficient information it has provided.

Some countries have urged their citizens to leave areas farther from the plant than those recommended by Japan, an apparent overreaction that may be caused by distrust of the Japanese government's determination and ability to resolve the situation.

Cooperation from the international community, particularly the United States, is essential to handle the crisis. Japan therefore must gain foreign countries' trust by providing accurate information.

The U.S. government apparently has been frustrated by the lack of detailed facts about the damaged reactors at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s nuclear power plant.

MORE: http://www.yomiuri.c...10319003204.htm

Edited March 20, 2011 by jfchandler

[jfchandler]

Minami-Sanrikucho a ghost town

No bodies, survivors found in tsunami-hit Miyagi Pref. community, 8,000 residents missing

The Yomiuri Shimbun

March 20, 2011

MINAMI-SANRIKUCHO, Miyagi--Despite intensified rescue operations, rescue workers have yet to find a single survivor or a body in tsunami-hit Minami-Sanrikucho, Miyagi Prefecture, following the massive March 11 earthquake.

While the search for bodies and missing people proceeds with difficulty in the disaster-stricken areas along the Pacific Ocean, the official toll of dead and missing from the quake and tsunami has now exceeded that of the Great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995.

Kobe fire department rescue team members, who also worked in areas affected by the Great Hanshin Earthquake, have been operating in Minami-Sanrikucho. But they do not have any idea of the whereabouts of the legions of missing people swept away after massive tsunami swallowed up houses. In all, 8,000 town residents remain missing.

MORE: http://www.yomiuri.c...10319003030.htm

Edited March 20, 2011 by jfchandler

[Lite Beer]

Japan was late in distributing iodine pills near stricken Fukushima nuke plant, safety official says/RT@BreakingNews

[jfchandler]

First time I've seen this estimate:

From The Mainichi Daily News

According to TEPCO, the maximum earthquake intensity measured at the plant was 431 gals, lower than the 600 gals that the nuclear plant is required to withstand, on a provisional basis. But the ensuing tsunami, which Nishimaya said was beyond the scope of assumptions in the quake-prone country, is believed to have crippled the cooling functions.

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110319p2g00m0dm064000c.html

[elcent]

First time I've seen this estimate:

From The Mainichi Daily News

According to TEPCO, the maximum earthquake intensity measured at the plant was 431 gals, lower than the 600 gals that the nuclear plant is required to withstand, on a provisional basis. But the ensuing tsunami, which Nishimaya said was beyond the scope of assumptions in the quake-prone country, is believed to have crippled the cooling functions.

http://mdn.mainichi....0dm064000c.html

I never thought that 431 gals could create such an earthquake when simultaniously in action.

Aren't they through in using different scales every time they come up with something?

[JulianLS]

More on Japan reactor setback: Radioactive gas will be released to ease pressure/RT@BreakingNews

This is worrying. Last time they vented unit 3, the building exploded soon after....... Let's hope they do it slowly so any hydrogen has chance to disperse.

[Crushdepth]

Aren't they through in using different scales every time they come up with something?

The best one was Banana Equivalent Doses (BEDs).

[elcent]

From now on, no posts in a language other then English is allowed as has been forum policy...If you can not find the same news in English, than a Google Translate of a portion of the news (fair use) cleaned up for better understandability can be posted. A link to the Google Translate must be supplied.

It is good to have this option, as sometimes an important update is published in a non-English publication hours before it shows up in English. Trying to see how one can make this work I experimented with a post that was made about two hours ago and I saw that the URL of a web page is the same before and after translation in Google Chrome. So this is how it can most conveniently be done, using the example of that earlier post (the Google translation was awful and I cleaned it up):

**********

With reference to TEPCO, Kyodo reported that over 250 mSV was measured on six men who had been on duty at the Fukushima plant. Therefore, their exposure was over the limit. The company did not say what tasks the workers had carried out.

Source (in German): http://www.spiegel.d...,751914,00.html

**********

This way, if a reader wants to see the German text he can click on the link and, if he is using Chrome, click on "Translate" to have the whole page translated. As Tywais has indicated, this is an ideal solution for a special World News topic like this one, and the publication being quoted is given due credit.

Of course, a link to the source must also be given if text from an English-language page is quoted and in this case the reference to the language is omitted. These links to the source are essential to avoid accusations of plagiarism.

Translation

German language doesn't bode so well with machine translation. To many rules and changes in grammer all the time. While this is a good exercise to train logical thinking, it's also very difficult language. Japanese to English looks quite right though. Not sure if it is consistent with the content as it should be though.

[Lite Beer]

At Fukushima Plant I, power cables are connected at No. 1 and 2 reactors to reactivate the cooling system. http://tinyurl.com/5tvwv66/RT@norishikata

[Lite Beer]

Taiwan official: Radiation detected on imported Japanese fava beans - AP/RT@BreakingNews

[Jdietz]

More on Japan reactor setback: Radioactive gas will be released to ease pressure/RT@BreakingNews

This is worrying. Last time they vented unit 3, the building exploded soon after....... Let's hope they do it slowly so any hydrogen has chance to disperse.

Nothing much left to explode in #3, outside 'structure' is all but gone, Hydrogen won't have a problem to escape that pile of rubble, even if it ignites.

[Lite Beer]

TEPCO announces pressure has stabilized inside No3 reactor vessel at #Fukushima N-plant, will not release steam for time being./RT@DailyYomiuri

[Lite Beer]

Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano is holding a press conference shortly (live on NHK)./RT@JPN_PMO

PM's Office of Japan

[elcent]

(All times are local in Japan GMT+9)

• Timestamp: 2:15pm The official death toll from Japan's devastating earthquake and tsunami has risen to 8,133 with 12,272 still missing, Kyodo news agency said, citing the police.
  Police earlier said they feared more than 15,000 people had died in one prefecture alone, Miyagi, in the March 11 disaster. http://blogs.aljazeera.net/live/asia/disaster-japan-live-blog-march-20

[elcent]

Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano is holding a press conference shortly (live on NHK)./RT@JPN_PMO

PM's Office of Japan

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nhk-world-tv

[WarpSpeed]

Japan's nuclear industry has had a rather chequered history even in the last decade - so I should repeat - imagine if this sort of stuff happens in a less "organised" country?If Japan which apparently gets 75% of their power from nuclear sources, can't get their shit together you do you expect can????

Do you mean, what would happen in a country that got hit by a 9 magnitude earthquake and a 10 metre tsunami?

Do any other countries have nuclear power plants in such high risk locations?

Yes... Many, sea water is commonly used for additional cooling...

[Lite Beer]

Edano: None of the contaminated milk, spinach has reached the market. #Fukushima/RT@W7VOA

[elcent]

They are figuring out now how to continue. Only two options left. To let out highly radioactive gasses into the containment-vessel leading to pollute the water or opening the valves and let the highly radioactive steam out into the air. Either way will increase radioactivity instantly.

The other and last option is to burry the reacor in sand and concrete.

You'll have to watch a record on HNK TV. Sure they will play the recording soon again. Open up a new window and http://www.ustream.t...el/nhk-world-tv

Just hear data will be revealed now.

[JimsKnight]

Japan's nuclear industry has had a rather chequered history even in the last decade - so I should repeat - imagine if this sort of stuff happens in a less "organised" country?If Japan which apparently gets 75% of their power from nuclear sources, can't get their shit together you do you expect can????

Do you mean, what would happen in a country that got hit by a 9 magnitude earthquake and a 10 metre tsunami?

Do any other countries have nuclear power plants in such high risk locations?

Yes... Many, sea water is commonly used for additional cooling...

Not so sure about that, for emergency cooling yes. Not as routine though. The stuff is corrosive and will damage equipment over time....