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March 30 to April 10
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| March 30, 2011 Originally posted by checkmeout I just thought I'd post the response i got from my
complaint to the IAEA over their lack of intervention
etc.. I have sent a reply requesting info on the fukushima
daini plant and will update if I get any..(anyone in the
UK also sick and tired of hearing about Milliband's
announced wedding - cos that's far far more important than
nuc-u-lar meltdown!!)
"Thank you for your frank views. In about two hours we will be able to release the latest details of the IAEA's radioactive monitoring, the potential health effects from radiological exposure and the status of the reactors. These briefings have been on-going since 15 March and you will find all of the findings released on our website at: http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/tsunamiupdate01.html , or, at: http://www.facebook.com/iaeaorg In addition, the presentations accompanying these briefings are available at: http://www.slideshare.net/iaea . If I may, I would like to address a misunderstanding that often arises. The IAEA does not have a mandate to establish, enforce or police international or national nuclear safety legislation and regulations. In fact, the IAEA brings together the experts, scientists, regulators and government representatives to develop and approve the standards. These standards are then used to create the national legislation regulation. Nonetheless, each country has independent regulatory bodies responsible for safety-related regulations and their subsequent enforcement. Ultimately, each individual reactor operator is responsible for the safety of their facility. In brief, I can provide a quick update on how the IAEA is helping Japan deal with this accident. The Japanese government on 15 March requested assistance from the IAEA in the areas of environmental monitoring and the effects of radiation on human health, asking for IAEA teams of experts to be sent to Japan to assist local experts. Two IAEA teams are on the ground conducting measurements, while the Incident and Emergency Centre provides a 24-hour communications liaison with governments around the world. The missions will draw on IAEA resources and may also involve Response and Assistance Network (RANET) and Member States' capabilities. This development follows the IAEA's offer to Japan of its 'Good Offices' - i.e., making available the Agency's direct support and coordination of international assistance. Please note that all of the information that is contained in the updates that are posted on the website and on Facebook has been authenticated through official sources in the Japanese government. The IAEA's Incident and Emergency Centre operates a global emergency response system that is reliable and secure. Under this arrangement, each State's competent authorities receive, convey and provide authoritative information on incidents and emergencies. These competent authorities are directly engaged in managing the emergency response and nuclear safety. The IAEA is committed to helping the Japanese people and asks you to lend your support to the Japanese people in this difficult period: Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident Update (26 March,
10:30 UTC) Announcements, Featured IAEA Sends Second and Third Teams to Japan to Aid Response to Nuclear Emergency The IAEA has dispatched additional teams to Japan to assist in the response to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant emergency. On 24 March, a team of IAEA specialists travelled to Japan, where they will continue efforts to supplement Japan’s radiation monitoring efforts. Team members include worker radiation protection experts and safeguards department officials. On 25 March, a joint IAEA/Food and Agriculture Organization team departed Vienna. The three-person team included the Head of the IAEA Food and Environmental Protection Laboratory, an IAEA soil scientist, and an FAO food safety specialist from FAO’s headquarters in Rome.
This food safety assessment team will provide advice
and assistance on sampling and analytical strategies and
will help interpret Japanese monitoring data."
edit on 3/30/2011 by checkmeout Smoke briefly detected at Fukushima Daini nuclear power
plant Smoke was temporarily seen at the No. 1 reactor of the Fukushima Daini nuclear power plant, but it soon disappeared, its operator said Wednesday. Tokyo Electric Power Co. said smoke was detected at around 5:56 p.m. from a power distribution panel on the first floor of the turbine building at the reactor. The company, known as TEPCO, said it made a call to a local fire department. The announcement came at a time when efforts are under way to contain the nuclear crisis at the radiation-leaking Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex, hit by the devastating March 11 earthquake and ensuing tsunami. The Fukushima Daini plant is located about 10 kilometers from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant, and its four reactors have been stable in so-called ''cold shutdown'' after suspending operations following the quake. |
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| March 30, 2011 Originally posted by Vitchilo Just look at this insanity.. EU raises ``safe level`` of caesium in food by 20 times! EPA ready to increase ``safe levels`` of radiation by as much as 100 000 times the current levels This looks to me like a concerted effort to hide what's really happening. I mean, the economy needs to keep going! Doesn't matter if people die Concerns about radiation in Japan have now spread to
the soil surrounding the crippled Fukushima Daiichi
nuclear reactor. One level that was reported this week was
high enough to suggest people in that area should be
evacuated, an expert says. But he cautions that it's hard
to draw conclusions about these spot measurements without
more data.
Today, Japanese officials told the population living up to 30 kilometers from the plant that they should consider leaving the area, expanding the previous 20-kilometer radius evacuation zone. But according to news reports, the advice stems from difficulties in supplying the region with food and water, not radiation levels. Meanwhile, on Wednesday the Japanese science ministry began to report measurements of cesium-137 in upland soil around the plant. The levels are highest from two points northeast of the plant, ranging from 8690 becquerels/kilogram to a high of 163,000 Bq/kg measured on 20 March from a point in Iitate about 40 kilometers northwest of the Fukushima plant.
The soil measurements are more significant for
evacuation purposes than radioactivity in the air, says
nuclear engineer Shih-Yew Chen of Argonne National
Laboratory in Illinois, because cesium dust stays
underfoot while air is transient. Levels of cesium-137
are also more important than soil readings of
iodine-131, which is short-lived and more of a concern
in milk and vegetables. "It's the cesium that would
prompt an evacuation," says Chen.
Japan Radiation Map Roundup If you want to know what's going on, ask the nerds. As fears swelled over radiation from Japan's battered Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in the days after the 11 March quake, computer-savvy individuals around the globe had an immediate reaction: show people the data. Within days, individuals began tracking down and using the data to create interactive maps and graphs of radiation levels in Japan. Here are some that have stood out as especially useful. Their sources include government monitoring stations and Geiger counters duct-taped to the balconies of Tokyo apartments, and vary in completeness and in how frequently they're updated. Neither Science nor the creators guarantee these maps' accuracy; they are meant to supplement, not replace, official formats of releasing data. These maps are works in progress, and new ones are coming online every day. If a map has caught your eye, if you're developing your own, or if you're a scientist and have found visualizations like these to be helpful, send us an email, or leave a comment below. We'll add them to this page, so check back again. Marian Steinbach, a user-interface designer based in Cologne, Germany, noticed something decidedly user-unfriendly about media reports on Japan's nuclear crisis. "I was looking for a big picture of the situation of radiation in Japan, which I couldn't find," he says. So he started manually grabbing radiation readings from Japan's sensor network, known as SPEEDI, which is released every 10 minutes by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). He put them in a format that developers could work with. Soon volunteers from around the world joined in to keep the data flowing—and translate data posted only in Japanese—until Steinbach could write a computer script to automatically "scrape" the data from the site and dump them into a readable file at intervals. Still missing, however, are continuous readings from Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures, which were hard-hit by the earthquake. MEXT is publishing readings from the latter a few times a day as a PDF that Steinbach hasn't been able to scrape—yet. Nevertheless, Steinbach's data have become a source for a growing number of maps and visualizations. "Fortunately, I have a flat fee on bandwidth," he says.
One spinoff is Norwegian software engineer Geir
Engdahl's map, which displays SPEEDI sensor locations
and their readings in nanoGrays per hour. (Grays are a
way of measuring radiation that looks purely at the
energy deposited in tissue, known as the absorbed dose.)
Click on a bubble—which are color coded by magnitude—to
see the most recent reading. You can also track that
station's reading over the past 24 hours, week, or month
to look for spikes or to compare readings before and
after the earthquake.
Source Realtime radiation map links: |
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| March 31, 2011 Thursday, March 31, 2011 Japan Nuclear Agency: Truck Runs Into Daini Nuclear Plant Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said Thursday that a truck had run through the gate of a nuclear power plant in Fukushima prefecture earlier today. The driver has been detained by the police, a spokesman at the agency said at a press conference. The truck, which appeared to belong to right-wing groups, had loudspeakers that would normally be used for political slogans and songs. The agency, known as NISA, said the truck showed up at 0321 GMT in front of the main gate of the quake-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, demanding entrance to the site. It was turned away. The truck then moved to the Fukushima Daini plant located about 10 kilometer south of the Daiichi plant. It ran through the west gate of the Daini plant at 0408 GMT. ~ SOURCE Youtube Link
Originally posted by JustMike
[reply to post by zorgon Regarding reactor building #5, I asked about this within a post back on page 397 but it was late at night (for me!) and I'm guessing I didn't write it too well or something. It's a long post and covers some other matters as well but the relevant bit was this: Darn,
wait a minute, one other thing I wanted to mention. Four days after the
quake, the spent rod pool in reactor building #5 was losing water. In
just a couple of hours it lost six times the amount it should lose in a
whole day from boiling and evaporation. Ergo, it apparently leaked or
did a lot of boiling. But since then I've not heard a word more about
it and that worries me a bit. Again, it's in the Washington Post
report. Here's the link. Details on page 5.
By the way, that report, which was seven pages, has now been revised down to six pages. I'm not sure what they took out or edited down. Perhaps something that was no longer relevant or superceded. But that stuff about #5 and its water loss is still there. My original post from March 29 is here. (Scroll down to the last chunk of the post!) No-one specifically replied to this query so I brought it up again as part of another post here about 10 hours ago. Zorgon, you and Redneck and some others who've posted great material here know more about this stuff than I ever will. The reason I've raised this issue twice already is not because of any special knowledge I have, but because I have a gut feeling that something's not right with #5 (and maybe #6 as well) and we are being told nothing about it. That's all I have to go on: just that one mention in the WP report and my own gut feelings. So it could be nothing and whatever caused that drop in level in the spent fuel pool has been fixed. But I don't know and I'd like some other, more knowing heads to consider it. Mike edit on 31/3/11 by JustMike Originally posted by MissTiger Possible reason for contaminated water reaching the sea. If the reactor buildings were constructed similar to the Kashiwazaki Kariwa nuclear plant then there will be sub pumps set into a well at the bottom of the basement floors for "accidents". I know there are sub pumps at Dani so it only makes sense they are in Daiichi. In the 2007 Niigata-Chuetsu-Oki earthquake, water overflowed from the spent fuel pools in units 1 to 7 of Kashiwazaki. The water from unit 6 leaked into the non-controlled area via an electric cable conduit and into the sump in the floor. It was confirmed that the contaminated water in the drainage sump had been discharged into the sea by the sump pump when the water level increased. I know sump pumps are electric but with the earthquake and the amount of water in the bottom of the reactor buildings, it would be enough to break a seal and then lead straight out to the sea. This pipe probably runs straight through the trench too. |
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April 01, 2011 Source: reuters // Reuters TOKYO, April 1 (Reuters) - Japanese trade minister Banri Kaieda said on Friday the government has yet to debate the possibility of nationalising or taking control of Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO), the operator of the crippled Fukushima nuclear complex, Kyodo news agency reported. The government may set up a team to discuss TEPCO-related compensation issues, Kyodo quoted Kaieda, whose ministry oversees nuclear safety, as saying, as the firm faces a huge potential compensation bill. TEPCO has come under fire for its handling of the emergency at its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex, triggered by a March 11 earthquake and tsunami that left nearly 28,000 people dead or missing. The Mainichi newspaper reported on Friday that Japan will take control of the firm. (Reporting by Yoko Kubota) Originally posted by burntheships I did not see this posted yet... Has this been addressed? URGENT: Gov't eyes injecting nitrogen into reactor
vessels to prevent blasts
The government and Tokyo Electric Power Co. are considering injecting nitrogen into containment vessels of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant's reactors to prevent hydrogen explosions, government sources said Friday. Originally posted by Destinyone uh huh....nothing to see...move along... April 1/2011
The Yomiuri Shimbun Nuclear experts predict it will take decades to complete the decommissioning of the Nos. 1 to 4 reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. Tokyo Electric Power Co. Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata said Wednesday the company will decommission the four reactors, but the most pressing task at the moment is how to dispose of the huge quantity of water that has become contaminated with radioactive materials after being used to cool the reactors. Just disposing of this water will take a long time. An estimated 13,000 tons of contaminated water has accumulated in trenches--tunnels used for maintenance of the reactors. A large quantity of contaminated water also has to be extracted from the basements of the reactors' turbine buildings, although the exact amount is unknown. If the contaminated water can be removed, it will pave the way to reactivating the reactors' original cooling systems, which can lower the temperature of the reactor cores more efficiently than the methods now being employed. Currently, however, workers at the plant are stymied by the contaminated water. They cannot even connect power cables outside the plant to the reactors' control systems. It may be impossible to restore power to the reactor control systems if internal radiation levels are so high workers cannot repair the machinery, or if the contaminated water cannot be removed. If water continues to leak, external tanks for temporarily storing it may become full. Workers and experts have said new facilities to store the contaminated water must be secured as soon as possible. If all the contaminated water can be removed, the reactors then must be put in what is called cold shutdown to prevent the further discharge of large quantities of radioactive substances and bring the reactors into a stable state. Cold shutdown means all control rods have been inserted into the reactors to stop nuclear fission chain reactions, and the coolant water inside the reactors is below 100 C. Usually the temperature needs to be lowered further to remove fuel rods for regular checks or decommissioning. "If the original cooling systems can be activated through a power supply from outside the plant and coolant water circulated, cold shutdown can be achieved in a day or two," Prof. Kenichiro Sugiyama of Hokkaido University said. But it will likely take a few more years for the nuclear fuel rods to be cool enough to be removed from the reactors to decommission them. On the other hand, if the current method--putting coolant water into the reactors with makeshift pumps--continues to be used, the situation may become more serious. "Although the nuclear fuel would cool gradually, it would take at least several months to achieve cold shutdown," said Toru Ebisawa, a former associate professor of Kyoto University's Research Reactor Institute. This would mean using more water, which would increase the amount of contaminated water. Overall, it will take decades to complete the process of decommissioning the reactors. The Japan Atomic Power Co.'s Tokai plant in Ibaraki
Prefecture was the first commercial nuclear power plant in Japan to begin
being decommissioned. The plant ended commercial operations in 1998, and
the decommissioning process is scheduled to end in 2021.
Source
Des |
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| April 01, 2011 Originally posted by Procharmo This directory has all the TEPCO company PDFs in it
Among the places Horie worked was Tokyo Electric
Co.’s now-infamous Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant. According to
his book, as recounted by AMPO:
Workers are recruited from all over
the country attracted by a daily wage of 5,000 to 10,000 yen and sent into
the plants with hardly any knowledge of radiation. (Until a few years ago
the workers were recruited from slums such as Sanya in Tokyo, Kamagasaki
in Osaka and buraku – where Japanese outcasts live – in the Kansai
area.
According to Morie, many of the Americans subcontracted by General Electric at the Fukushima plant were African-American (this photograph depicts a black GE subcontractor at the Fukushima plant in 1980). AMPO wrote: Morie shows in detail how the conditions
in nuclear power plants make irradiation control difficult. Tokyo Electric’s
Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant is said to be the most contaminated
nuclear power plant in the world, and Japan Atomic’s Tsuruga plant (scene
of a major accident in 1981) is also notorious for its loose radiation
control…It is naturally subcontracted workers (and a “foreigners squad”
of black workers sent from the U.S. by General Electric and Westinghouse)
who are to work under such a high radioactive dose.
Now what I'm asking you all is if Americans (GE/Westinghouse employees) saw TEPCO recruiting poor so called nuclear gypsies from Japanese poor districts. Do you think it was morally correct to fly all the way back to the US and set up recruitment from poor black areas to just to make as much profit as TEPCO were from the exploited workers. Anyway it's good to know that the praise for the Fukishima
50 or Nuclear Samurai includes "Black Americans" as well as poor Japanese. |
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| April 01, 2011 Researcher explains how radiation reaches Tokyo A Japanese researcher explained to NHK how radioactive substances that leaked from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have spread and reached Tokyo and other parts of the Kanto region. Hiromi Yamazawa, a Professor at Nagoya University graduate school, says that high levels of radiation have reached Kanto at least twice since the nuclear plant accident. He says the first incidence occurred from March 15th through the 16th. Contaminated air spread widely in Kanto. The second occurred from the 20th through the 21st. Contaminated air went south along the coast, and reached Chiba and Tokyo. The air was then blown northwest to the inland prefecture of Gunma. Yamazawa says the rain in a broad area of Kanto in the surrounding days deposited radioactive substances in rivers and contaminated water in purification plants in the region. Yamazawa warns that radiation could more easily flow into Kanto from now to the early summer, due to winds blowing south from Fukushima during these seasons. ~ NHK News |
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| Man arrested after breaking into Fukushima Daini plant
premises
FUKUSHIMA, Japan, April 1, Kyodo An unemployed man from Tokyo was arrested Friday after allegedly intruding by car into the Fukushima Daini nuclear power plant premises, near the radiation-leaking Fukushima Daiichi plant in Fukushima Prefecture, police said. Hikaru Watanabe, 25, from Shinjuku Ward, allegedly broke through the western gate of the Daini plant around 1:10 p.m. Thursday, before driving inside its premises for about 10 minutes, the plants' operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said, adding that no one was injured in the incident. Watanabe was arrested on suspicion of unlawful entry and property destruction, the local police said, adding that he admitted to the allegations. The purpose of the intrusion remains unknown. The police, who were alerted to the incident and went to the scene, asked the suspect to voluntarily go with them for questioning. The vehicle and the suspect underwent a radiation decontamination process before being taken to a police facility, they said. About 50 minutes before the incident, the suspect's vehicle attempted to break through the front gate of the crippled Daiichi nuclear power plant, which is located about 12 kilometers north of the Daini plant, but he was blocked by Tokyo Electric Power employees, company officials said. A Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency official said the Daiichi and Daini plants are both guarded, but the agency is confirming whether sufficient security is being maintained under radiation-contaminated conditions. Many of the six reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant are still in an emergency state after the March 11 quake and tsunami hit northeastern Japan, with radioactive substances likely to be continuing to leak into the environment. The four reactors at the Daini plant are basically in a stable situation, as they achieved a so-called ''cold shutdown'' after the quake. The agency said it ordered Tokyo Electric Power to take all measures to ensure security especially from the viewpoint of nuclear material protection. |
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| April 01, 2011 Originally posted by Moonbeams771 The mayor of Minamisoma, Fukushima Prefecture, a city subject to a government directive for its residents to stay indoors to avoid radioactive fallout from a nuclear plant crippled by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, has begun appealing to the world over the ''injustice'' of such an instruction.
...the people are literally drying up as if there
are under starvation tactics.
Local officials are now fighting the threat of radiation, they have been working to protect the citizen in such a strain and exhaustion. Some of them lost their family in the earthquake disaster, and some lost their houses. They are the backbones of the lives of citizens. ...Please help us through. Helping each other is what makes us human being. I would like to ask for your continuous support. Thank you. Kyodo News
Originally posted by Moonbeams771SeekerofTruth101 This is an ATROCITY and a CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY!!!!! How could the authorities tell their citizens to 'remain indoors' when the radiation levels are gradually growing more harmful every exponential minute, verified by every concerned specialists around the world with no ties to energy cartels espacially to the corporation funded IAEA????!!!! Now is the time for UN's head, Mr. Ban Ki Moon, who had redeemed himself over the Libya rescue, to step forward and demand the EVACUATION of our fellow human Japanese brothers and sisters. They must be convinced to leave, espacially the old, the infirmed, women and children, but if they chosed to stay on their free will, then they must be prepared to live on their own. NO ONE MUST BE LEFT BEHIND! This is inhuman of what the jap authorities and the emperor is doing!!!!! No human needs to suffer, more so if not related to the containment of the reactors, please! Japan is a rich nation, and can jolly well afford tents, food and water in southern Japan for the common folks to survive till the crisis is over. It's not and never should be about money, because money can always be earned back when calm returns if it takes decades later, even if Japan is not a resource rich nation. It's people are the best resource and MUST NOT be neglected or a tragedy of epic proportions will occur, if it had not already occured enough in Japan! May Mr K. M. Ban and world leaders step in now before
its too late.....\ It is basically vindication IMO. There is no way the corium from
reactor #3 is inside that building. All that is left of the RPV now is
a huge vertical piece of pipe. I now believe that the posters who were
saying they thought they saw the lid of the reactor in the explosion
were probably right.
The actual corium is sitting underneath the building inside the
bedrock. Apparently the rock can dissipate enough heat to keep it from
moving down, at least quickly. If not, we would already have seen a
steam explosion that would have dwarfed the last one. The small amount
of steam indicates that the corium is now quite probably solid again,
floating in seawater mostly encased in the bedrock. That steam is very
hazardous, containing isotopes ranging from strontium-90 to iodine-131
to chlorine-36 and everything in between. A cool, solid mass of corium
puts out just as much heat and radiation as a superheated liquid mass
of corium. The heat of a meltdown is a reaction, not a cause.
Every shift of the tides is pumping that highly radioactive seawater
back out into the Pacific or water back into the cracks around the
corium. Seawater levels will continue to rise until everything in that
area is dead. Beyond this kill zone, there will be a larger buffer zone
that will harbor dying and mutating species, but will still support
some kind of life.
I believe, based on TEPCO's actions, that the bedrock is cracked far
too much to attempt a repair.
Northern Japan is a dead zone without knowing it. Anything within 50
miles is going to die prematurely, some fairly quickly. It will remain
an uninhabitable zone for what is practically eternity. Other countries... well, I expect there to be an adjustment on the US
west coast to deal with higher radiation levels in the water. The air
contamination is slowly easing, which makes me believe that it was
caused by the initial explosion at #3 and not by continuing
contamination of the air. Obviously, the US will be the foremost major
country to see widespread effects, although the coasts of China and
Russia will see some appreciable contamination as well, probably higher
than the US. Smaller countries like North and South Korea will also be
affected significantly. The extent of international effects will be ultimately determined not
by #3, but by #1 and #2, and possibly by #5 and #6. The plant will soon
become completely unworkable; those brave heroes are going to die.
Soon. I doubt they will be able to keep things under wraps after that,
and therefore will be unable to get more workers. If there are
reactions occurring in those other reactors, they will probably explode
as well without human intervention. Ironically, the best case with #1
and #2 will be that they are melting into the bedrock as well,
contaminating the Pacific more, but not blowing more isotopes into the
upper atmosphere to be dumped on other countries.
The spent fuel pools will be a local problem, not an international one.
They will be at least as devastating as the meltdowns to Japan.
We just witnessed the removal of Japan from the status of developed
country, and a new era of radiation concerns worldwide.
TheRedneck Originally posted by burntheships However, you wont believe this... I would not have given much credibility to the report below...until I spotted that news from Kyodo. (I don't agree with the idea...only posting to propose that this is actually where the idea may have come from) Catherine Lin-Hendel sent an e-mail to the Dallas Blog, in which she claimed she had a direct phone call with Mr. Edano last night, Tokyo-time. He requested her to speak with a technical expert at MITTI. But this apparent acronym can not be found on a “Google” search, but the MITI of Japan stands for the Ministry of International Trade and Industry. Nevertheless, Ms. Lin-Hendel has not received a response
from the so-called “technical expert,” which may be cause for concern,
or a good story-line for the next TV episode of “24.” As the plot thickens,
one wonders if Yukio Edano will come to the rescue with a mix of Boron
powder and liquid nitrogen to prevent a further nuclear meltdown in Northeastern
Japan. Stay tuned for the latest news developments on the Dallas Blog.
Here is Catherine Lin-Hendel's scientific explanation: 1. Use Liquid Nitrogen to instantly cool nuclear feul rods. 2. Use Boron powder mixed in Liquid Nitrogen to slow/stop nuclear reaction. Liquid Nitrogen is available in large quantities in Japan, should be used to flood and cool the fuel rods first. It very cold--Minus 198 C, innert, and highly pressurized. It is injected into the Reactor dome by pressure , thus needing no electricity. The cooling is extremely fast. The vapor produced is also very cold and innert. If stopping the nuclear reaction is desired: mix boron
powder with liquid nitrogen. You put boron powder in the LN dewar (the
thermally insulated container) before you fill the dewar with liquid nitrogen.
Then you bring the dewar upside down to connect the outlet of liquid nitrogen
to the fluid intake of the nuclear reactor chamber. The pressurized liquid
nitrogen during its injection into the reaction chamber would mix the boron
with liquid nitrogen evenly, and inject into the nuclear reation chamber
Source I am not sure what scares me the most...the idea of nitrogen injection... or that Yukio Edono might really have taken this idea to heart by way of Ms Lin Hendel. Where are the teams of nuclear experts? ETA: I do not think this is a good idea... see clarification above... |
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| April 01, 2011 Originally posted by DancedWithWolves Confirmation radiation is now in the ground water...and evacuations will be long term. Japanese officials say the evacuation of residents
near the earthquake-hit Fukushima nuclear plant will be long-term.
The announcement came as high levels of radiation were detected for the
first time in groundwater near one of the facility's reactors. ~ Source
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| Originally posted by buffet of lies I have read a few pages out of this thread (maybe 40 total) which is a very small chunk out of the nearly 500 pages so I am unsure if what I am going to ask has been covered or not. Sorry if it has. I can go back and read if someone can provide a range of pages it may have been discussed on. On March 26th there was an article that came out that
was mostly about the fukushima 50 but had a few lines that struck me as
odd: A ghastly boom was heard in the suppression chamber
of reactor 4, said Kenji Tada, who was there at the time. Cracks
started ripping in the asphalt and the sides of the building. They
fled before the tsunami arrived and did its worst.
~ SOURCE This implies that there was an explosion before the plant completely lost power. It says the main power was knocked out, but the tsunami hadn't arrived yet so the battery/backup generators should have kicked in. I think the part about the cracks starting is telling as well. Does it change anything or is it significant? That's what I'm wondering... Originally posted by apacheman Thanks for the link. Here's what caught my eye in that report by the fire chief when he arrived, bolding added: ''There were concrete blocks everywhere, all
the manhole covers had popped out, for some reason, and the road was
impassable. We couldn't drive down to pay out the hose from the sea. So
we had to run, carrying the hose, half a mile to the sea, in total darkness.''
It prompted a "duuuhhh, of course" moment in my mind. If he was arriving after the explosions (not clear from the report, but seems likely), then the manhole covers were blown off by explosive forces moving through the maintenance and sewage tunnels from the plants that blew up. This would explain a bit about why the ground and groundwater are showing contamination. It also means that crucial electrical connections in those tunnels may be compromised... I've worked in a few and you wouldn't believe how much stuff is run through them. Something else to think through. Does anyone have access to the subsurface engineering diagrams of that site that show those tunnels? Perhaps studying the hi-res photos will show the manholes and allow us to deduce at least part of the layout, maybe enough to figure out what's going on in them. It occurs to me that perhaps the tsunami popped them out, too...so a comparison of overhead views before/after explosions would be in order, if any can be found that show sufficient detail. Originally posted by TheRedneck I just went through it again... the initial flash was at 0:02. At 0:04, 0:06, and 0:08 there were thuds... not explosive booms, but thuds. Three in a row, at roughly 2 second intervals. I believe we were hearing ruptures in the containment, possibly from pressure and overheating. The actual explosion occurred a little bit after that, a steam explosion as corium hit water. We didn't hear that sound because the video cut off 11 seconds after the initial flash. So based on that, here's what might have happened. I am giving times, where I can, in seconds after the initial event:
The bulk of the now-liberated hydrogen ignites from the initial flash, causing a horizontal wavefront that triggers the earthquake and tsunami sensors. The above assumes a distance which would create a 30-second delay between light and sound reception. Would someone please let me know if this is about right? I forget the actual distance. TheRedneck
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April 01, 2011 U.S. Navy U.S. Navy barge YOGN-115, carrying 1.04 million litres (275,000 gallons) of fresh water, departs Commander, Fleet Activities Yokosuka (CFAY) to support cooling efforts at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in this U.S. Navy handout photo dated March 25, 2011. CFAY port operations cleaned and filled two barges, totalling nearly 1.89 million litres (500,000 gallons) of fresh water. REUTERS/U.S. Navy/Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Mikey Mulcare/Handout (JAPAN - Tags: MILITARY DISASTER) FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS |
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| Originally posted by burntheships reply to post by zorgon Well we knew this...I guess seeing is believing. IAEA calls N-crisis 'serious', 12-inch crack at
Fukushima. This report says there is a 12 inch crack in the wall
of the No 2 reactor.
The Prime Minister's visit to the northeast came
as TEPCO said it has found that highly radioactive water was leaking into
the sea from a 12-inch crack in a wall of the No.2 reactor at the Fukushima
Daiichi nuclear power plant....
....It said the water was leaking from the crack in the wall of a 2-metre deep pit that contains power cables near the water intake of the reactor, national broadcaster NHK reported.  Picture courtesy of HO/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images TEPCO is preparing to pour concrete into the cracked pit to stop the leak of radioactive water. The radiation detected in water in the basement of the turbine building at the No.2 reactor was about 100,000 times the normal level. ~ SOURCE Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said it
has found a 20-centimeter crack in a two-meter-deep chamber holding cables
for the No. 2 reactor, which is believed to be leaking highly toxic water
from its nuclear core.
It the conduit, which is 10 to 20 centimeters deep in radioactive water, workers found a highly dangerous airborne contamination of more than 1,000 millisieverts an hour. The contamination level of the water itself wasn't immediately available. That high a level of radioactivity has also been found in a trench used to carry cables and various piping for the No. 2 unithttp://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703712504576238143895170426.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
All that radiation leaking into the sea for weeks now. Finally someone is concerned? It's about time! The UCS is concerned about caesium and plutonium in the water... Years and Years "There is the potential, when you're talking about
certain types of seafood, that you can have reconcentration," said Ed Lyman
of the[b] Union of Concerned Scientists, a respected U.S. non-government
organisation that focuses on nuclear safety.........
Radioactive elements are hazardous in food because when ingested their radiation can damage DNA in cells, with the potential to cause cancer. ~ SOURCE "What worries me more is if caesium and plutonium get into the system," he said, referring to two radioactive heavy metals whose half-lives are around 30 years and potentially thousands of years respectively.
So what is going to happen now with all of this caesium and plutonium in the ocean? Dont worry, it will be temporary... Radiation in Japan Seas: Risk of Animal Death, Mutation?
More radiation from nuclear plant could cause "bizarre
mutations.". Once in seawater, radiation can hurt ocean animals
in several ways—by killing them outright, creating "bizarre mutations"
in their offspring, or passing radioactive material up the food chain,
according to Joseph Rachlin, director of Lehman College's Laboratory for
Marine and Estuarine Research in New York City.
"There will be a potential for a certain amount of lethality of living organisms, but that's less of a concern than the possible effects on the genetics of the animals that become exposed," Rachlin said. "That's the main problem as I see it with radiation—altering the genetics of the animal and interfering with reproduction." SOURCE
Originally posted by monica86 Coincidence?
The same day that our dear Sarkozy and Areva's CEO visited japan, the IRSN in paris stopped reporting daily updates.... They used to publish a detailed analysis every day, it was quite insightful and offered details not released by other sources. ~ SOURCE Yesterday they published 2 days worth of short notes (instead of a detailed PDF file) in which they state they believe no major releases into the atmosphere will occur and that the situation has stabilized, they also state that in virtue of this they will not report daily unless something major occurs.... really? thanks Sarkozy.. |
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Originally posted by JustMike Yes it's weird how nothing much seems evident on those webcam shots, especially as we know for sure the explosion occurred on that day according to NHK, it happened at 11:01 a.m. But then, there have been various oddities with those webcam images, like the building that seems to lose half its upper structure (except for its framework) then magically is back to normal an hour later (on March 26 at 1600 hours and again on March 28 at the same time), and then on March 29 at 1600 hours the same building's upper half is missing completely! But don't worry, folks... It's back again an hour later... I'm not sure if I really trust those images... Mike Originally posted by mendel101Hi Mike, sorry for the late reply, work-party-family--- still within 24h! As my specialty is becoming the webcam, I thought I'd first figure out exactly what we are seeing on the webcam. Fortunately there is a higher resolution image of the plant in better times from almost exactly the same position:
Comparing the webcam shots with the higher resolution image I come to the following conclusions:
1. The structure that is varying between images March 26, 16:00 and March 29 16:00 is the reactor 5 or 6. 2. The differences in the images are likely due to the lighting and smoke conditions. Only with clear blue skies the webcam captures the 5/6 buildings properly (compare webcam images of the 12th and 29th of March) 3. I don't see any reason to distrust the webcam images. It's just a low res, not so great capture device, especially under lower light conditions. 4. Of reactors 1-4 the webcam almost exclusively sees reactor 4. This is probably the explanation why the explosion of reactor 3 is not at all obvious from the March 14 11:00-12:00 images. 5. As a bonus, knowing that the webcam captures mainly reactor 4, the images below show that the number 4 explosion must have been between March 15 6:00 and 7:00 local time:
Cheers, Mendel |
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| Originally posted by burntheships reply to post by rbrtj Thank you! BREAKING NEWS Power company reports 2 missing Fukushima nuclear plant workers found dead on site This was reported just now on Breaking News -Kyodo News ETA: Are these the two workers that were missing back from the 15th? Went looking... wish I had not. From March 16th, 2011.
The few details Tokyo Electric has made available
paint a dire picture. Five workers have died since the quake and 22 more
have been injured for various reasons, while two are missing. One worker
was hospitalized after suddenly grasping his chest and finding himself
unable to stand, and another needed treatment after receiving a blast of
radiation near a damaged reactor. Eleven workers were injured in a hydrogen
explosion at reactor No. 3. ~ Source
I assume these deaths are from radiation? |
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| April 02, 2011 Originally posted by qmantoo This is the page with all the webcam images on it - updated hourly. Obviously this is not much use if there is nothing going on there. Still... it shows interesting stuff going on. Page of webcam photos (look at the black one from 19:00
2nd Apr 2011)
In the April 2nd, 2011 at 19:00 one we can see a white heat spot. The next link is to the directory where all the PDFs reporting the radiation levels at the plant. I assume these are automatically generated and placed there. To translate them, place the PDF file url into the
following Google translate box
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Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Movie Part 2
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April 04, 2011 Originally posted by DancedWithWolves Radioactive contamination around the world is an area we need help following. Anyone? There is growing mumbling about lack of real data that considers the cumulative impact of being exposed to radiation for the at least 6 to 9 months it is projected to take to bring these reactors under control. Where are the cumulative projections of what this will mean as long-term exposure appears a sure thing? There is much "vested interest" that would cause regulators to downplay impact because of economic and social "concern." None of us should assume that our governments will sound the alarms before they have to and we should continue to do our own research on radiation exposure from this unprecedented event. Tracking radiation levels gives us a one day snapshot on any given day. What are the cumulative affects of long-term exposure that the world is now facing? Some are starting to ask the tougher questions and finding gaps in the answers. Just something to be aware of as we focus on Japan. We are all connected by wind and water and transport. San Francisco Rainwater: Radiation 181 Times Above US
Drinking
Water Standard Read more: No Official Data Yet Three weeks after the Fukushima nuclear power plant began spewing radiation into the world’s air, the US government has still not published any official data on nuclear fallout from the Fukushima meltdown. The amount of iodine-131 or other radioactive elements that have fallen as precipitation or made their way into milk supplies or drinking water has not yet been fully revealed. Scientists say an absence of federal data on the issue is hampering efforts to develop strategies for preventing radioactive isotopes from contaminating the nation's food and water. [The Bay Citizen, San Francisco] Rising Risks Fukushima radiation is blanketing most of the United States and Canada according to the data and visuals published regularly by the The Norwegian Institute of Air Research. The risks of that radiation falling with rain, have been downplayed by US government officials and others, who say its impacts are so fleeting and minor so as to be negligible. Nonetheless, radiation falling with rain can cover grass that is eaten by cows and other animals. It can also fall on food crops or contaminate reservoirs that are used for irrigation or drinking water. [Norwegian Institute of Air Research or NILU] Food and Water Watch Food and Water Watch -- the nonprofit Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) based in Washington, DC -- sent a letter to President Barack Obama and members of his cabinet and Congress a few days ago urging the US federal government to improve its monitoring of radiation in agricultural land and food in the wake of the Japanese tragedy. The letter from "Food and Water Watch" states: “The three agencies that monitor almost all of the food Americans eat … have insisted that the US food supply is safe . . . the agencies, however, have done very little to detail specific ways in which they are responding to the threat of radiation in food.” EPA and FDA The federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) states in its April 3rd advisory, "As the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has said, we do not expect to see radiation at harmful levels reaching the US from damaged Japanese nuclear power plants." The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which regulates food safety, has referred questions about potential milk contamination to the EPA, which is taking the lead on testing dairy products for radiation. Early last week, the EPA said it expected to release results of tests for radioactivity in rain and snow within a day or so. Just before the weekend, three days after making that pledge, EPA officials repeated the same statement and said the data would likely be released over the weekend or early this week. So far that data set has not been released. [EPA] Not trying to raise an alert here - just saying the silence on long-term exposure is getting a little loud. Published April 4. :( DWW out for now. Sorry for the news blitz all. |
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| April 05, 2011 High level of iodine-131 detected in Fukushima The operator of the disaster-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has detected 5 million times higher than the legal limit of radioactive iodine in seawater around the plant. Tokyo Electric Power Company says it detected 300,000 bequerels of iodine-131 per 1 cubic centimeter, or 7.5 million times higher than the legal limit in samples taken around the water intake of the No. 2 reactor at 11:50 AM on Saturday. It also found 200,000 bequerels or 5 million times higher than the limit in samples taken at 9AM on Monday. Monday's sample also shows 1.1 million times higher than the national limit of cesium-137 whose half-life is 30 years. The power company has been checking concentrations of radioactive materials in the seas around the plant as water containing high levels of radioactive materials has been pouring out of the cracked concrete pit near the No.2 reactor. |
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| April 08, 2011 Thursday's quake damages Onagawa nuclear plant Tohoku Electric Power Company says Thursday night's strong earthquake caused water to overflow from spent fuel storage pools at one of its nuclear power plants. The power company reported on Friday that water had spilled onto the floor at all 3 reactors at the Onagawa nuclear power plant in Miyagi Prefecture. The amount of water spilled was 3.8 liters at the most. The utility firm also found water leaks at 5 locations in the plant, including inside buildings housing the reactors. The company added that blowout panels--devices designed to control pressure inside the buildings--were damaged at the turbine building of the Number 3 reactor. The newly reported problems add to the downing of 3 of 4 external power lines at the Onagawa plant. The plant is maintaining its cooling capabilities with the remaining power line. Tohoku Electric Power Company is continuing its efforts to determine the extent of the damage caused by the latest quake. But it says no change has yet been seen in radiation levels around the plant. NHK News Friday, April 08, 2011 |
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| April 08, 2011 Kan Cuts Out Bureaucrats In Crisis, Japan's Leader Forged Path Around Career Officials, Raising Hackles By Yuka Hayashi And Norihiko Shirouzu TOKYO—Japan's prime minister sidestepped the country's well-worn bureaucratic channels and created an ad hoc response team to the nuclear crisis with his own advisers—a move that angered Japan's cadre of career officials and has exposed the leader to charges that he has mismanaged the crisis. Kan Cuts Out Bureaucrats Originally posted by Tworide reply to post by Destinyone That link went an abridged story. Try this link Hmmm, same strangeness happened with this link. This is a cut paste of the whole piece, will probably get cut but here it goes: By YUKA
HAYASHI
And NORIHIKO SHIROUZU TOKYO
Japan's prime minister sidestepped the
country's
well-worn bureaucratic channels and created an ad hoc response team to
the nuclear crisis with his own advisers—a move that angered Japan's
cadre
of career officials and has exposed the leader to charges that he has
mismanaged
the crisis. Tossing aside the disaster-response system envisioned by
Japanese
law, Prime Minister Naoto Kan also created his own emergency-response
body
to direct orders to Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the
quake-hobbled
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear-power complex.
With his moves in the weeks
after
Japan's March 11 earthquake and tsumani, Mr. Kan is essentially
test-driving
a new way of governing Japan, where for decades career officials have
taken
the lead in making policy. Critics say the prime minister's
determination
to call the shots in Japan's response to Fukushima Daiichi has
exacerbated
the crisis - including, some argue, delaying early efforts to head off
explosions
at the complex's overheating reactors. "If they had stuck with the
protocols
we designed, the responsibilities were clearly defined in the manual,"
said Nobuyuki Fukushima, a lawmaker from the ruling Democratic Party of
Japan, who as a bureaucrat helped to write nuclear-emergency plans that
Mr. Kan largely jettisoned.
"All that is in utter confusion. Nobody knows who should make what decision." Tepco and Japanese regulators have come under criticism over their response to the disaster and earlier incidents. Mr. Kan has cited those stumbles as justification for asserting his control of the situation. Those around the prime minister say he had no choice but to take a firm hand. "Under the usual bureaucratic system,with their way of taking time, there's no way we could respond to this disaster," Yukio Edano, the chief cabinet secretary and Mr. Kan's top aide, said in an interview. Among other things, Mr. Kan takes credit for helping get Tokyo firefighters to the site on the weekend of March 19-20, when they sprayed thousands of tons of water to cool pools that store spent nuclear fuel rods. His level of personal involvement in crisis management has surprised political insiders.From the day of the quake, Mr. Kan showed a keen interest in the stricken nuclear plant, asking during one conversation whether helicopters could airlift emergency power generators to the plant. He got on his cellphone to find out the generators' size and weight, said Kenichi Shimomura, one of his aides. "I remember thinking how unusual it was for a prime minister to inquire about the size of a battery," Mr. Shimomura said. Mr. Kan's DPJ came to power in 2009 after campaigning on the principle of putting elected politicians in charge. Mr. Kan's determination to push career officials out of the driver's seat amid Japan's crisis has a clear political dimension in the bureaucracy-heavy country. Outside the political fray, many observers praise Mr. Kan's principles. Yet they also say he stumbled in practice by trying to do too much himself. "The Democratic Party has a weak grasp of crisis management," said Nihon University political scientist Tomoaki Iwai. "They're amateurs, and that worked against them." Mr. Kan has served in parliament since 1980, usually in the opposition. As health minister in 1996, he exposed a coverup in the distribution of HIV-tainted blood products and forced officials and company executives to take responsibility. To Mr. Kan, the Fukushima nuclear accident looked like another unholy alliance between big business and bureaucrats. A 1999 law on nuclear-disaster response calls for a headquarters led by the prime minister. Mr. Kan followed the law in setting up the body. But Mr. Edano, his top aide, says the prime minister then had to wait for information to rise through layers of bureaucracy. "It's like there's a 'nuclear village' or a certain sort of guild-like atmosphere among the specialists," Mr. Kan told Communist Party leader Kazuo Shii last week, according to a transcript released by the Communist Party. Within a few days of the quake, Mr. Kan had devised his own plan. Barreling into Tepco headquarters at 5:30 a.m. on March 15, he told executives he was setting up a joint emergency headquarters at Tepco itself. The new body would be staffed by Mr. Kan's aides, allowing them to get information directly from Tepco and give orders on the spot. Such improvisation appears to run against guidelines from the International Atomic Energy Agency, which says countries should establish in advance a "command and control system" with a "clear allocation of responsibilities." While Mr. Kan's side cites the dispatch of Tokyo firefighters as an example of the new system in action, his critics point to an earlier episode in which a police riot-control truck failed to tame overheating spent-fuel pools. Katsuei Hirasawa, a former police official who is now an opposition lawmaker, said the prime minister's office and some ruling-party members told him that Mr. Kan's office gave the order to send police trucks in first. "They ought to take the blame for it," he said. "Even a child knows that the fire department is the one that specializes in spraying water." Said Noriyuki Shikata, a spokesman for the Cabinet Office: "Some people may have thought we should have called in the fire department first. But we have taken steps that we believe are the best at any given time." The two sides also disagree about who was responsible for the slow release of radiation data. The government's Nuclear Safety Commission waited until March 23 to disclose a threat of high radiation even outside the 12-mile evacuation zone around Fukushima Daiichi. The data prompted the government to offer evacuation help to people up to 18 miles from the plant. Mr. Kan's aides say the prime minister personally intervened to get the data out by summoning the commission head and another regulator to a March 22 meeting where he expressed frustration about bureaucratic turf wars. Mr. Fukushima, the lawmaker and former official, says that if everyone had been following the protocols, there would have been an "immediate release" of the information. A Nuclear Safety Commission spokesman, Yuta Tonegawa, attributed the delay to a lack of key data and the commissioners' busy schedules. Controversy surrounds Mr. Kan's visit to Fukushima Daiichi around 7 a.m. on March 12, the day after the quake. Passing by workers sleeping on the floor wrapped in blankets, Mr. Kan sat down with the two top officials at the plant in a small conference room for a 20-minute meeting. He asked technical questions and offered advice on how to tame the overheating reactors, according to one aide. The question is whether the visit delayed venting of the No. 1 reactor. By 10 p.m. the previous day, Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency regulators had projected that the fuel core inside that reactor would start melting in the early hours of the next day and called for urgent venting to release pressure, according to a timeline released by the agency. The venting began a few hours after Mr. Kan left. Mr. Kan denied his visit caused delay. Government officials blamed the difficulty in manually opening valves after the loss of electricity and communications problems. Bureaucrats' complaints grew so loud that a longtime adviser to Mr. Kan, Hokkaido University political scientist Jiro Yamaguchi, says he decided last week to ask the prime minister's office for an urgent appointment, and secured 40 minutes in Mr. Kan's office. He and a colleague urged their old friend to tap the resources of bureaucrats, he said. "I told him it was time to stop the blame game," said Mr. Yamaguchi. He said the encounter ended with frustration, as Mr. Kan again complained that he couldn't trust bureaucrats to give him the whole story. Mr. Kan's aides have showed signs of taking the advice, restoring a meeting of top bureaucrats that the ruling DPJ abolished after taking office. The group is coordinating policy on earthquake relief and recovery. Kozo Watanabe, a longtime lawmaker from Fukushima prefecture who holds the title of supreme adviser in the DPJ, says the Kan administration may need to revisit some of the old ways. "Some of the things that we got rid of amid calls for strong political leadership, including the vice ministerial meetings, need to be brought back to life," he said. One of the new advisers Mr. Kan hired, retired Lt. Gen. Noboru Yamaguchi, says his job now is to maximize use of officials' expertise. "We're not replacing bureaucrats," says Gen. Yamaguchi, now a professor at the National Defense Academy. "Eighty percent of the people we advisers talk to are bureaucrats." Write to Yuka Hayashi at yuka.hayashi@wsj.com and Norihiko Shirouzu at norihiko.shirouzu@wsj.com Kan Cuts Out Bureaucrats |
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| April 08, 2011 Originally posted by Frenchi For anybody analysing these reports, you can toggle the days up 1 day down 2 days. I’m not an expert but when I look at April 4-April 7 the number keep going up. So I have been playing with the toggling found from fun things. Here is a list: Results of Plutonium measurements in the soil in Fukushima Daiichi Plan March 25/28 Results Plutonium Measurement in soil Mar 21-22 Results of gamma ray nuclide analysis of soil Interesting article on RPV??? In a 3 units are damaged Reactor Schematic -> Nitrogen purge? Measurement of nuclide in the air at Daiini. April 4th Nice land view and summary of Water contamination April 4 (I-131) Tentative Preventative measure of spreading radioactive materials Results of nuclide analysis on seawater sampled in front of quay and screens of Unit 2/4 Radioactivity density of seawater near the quay of Fukushima Daiichi Results of nuclide analysis on seawater sampled 30 meter north of 5/6 Results of nuclide analysis on seawater sampled 330 meter South of 1-4 |
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April 09, 2011 Tokyo Electric Power Company plans to start removing highly radioactive water from the Number 2 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. A large amount of contaminated water was found in the reactor's turbine buildings and tunnels. The water is emitting high levels of radiation, which is obstructing restoration work. The utility had been working to empty the turbine condenser of the reactor and its processing facility for nuclear waste, and on Saturday successfully transferred all the water in the condenser to a separate tank. Hoses are being installed to connect the turbine buildings with the waste disposal facility. The contaminated water in the tunnel of the reactor will be transferred to the condenser, and then to the processing facility through the hoses. Also on Saturday, a steel plate was placed over the intake of the Number 2 reactor to stop highly radioactive water from reaching the sea. |
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| April 10, 2011 Radioactive water disposal delayed Work to dispose of highly radioactive water at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is not proceeding smoothly as more time is needed for preparations. Heavily contaminated water in turbine buildings and a concrete tunnel is hampering work to restore cooling functions in the troubled reactors. The total amount of water in question is estimated at more than 50,000 tons. The plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company, plans to transfer the highly radioactive water to a nuclear waste processing facility and turbine condensers. The utility firm is now working to lay hoses between the turbine buildings and the facility. Holes have already been bored in the walls of the buildings, but work to install the hoses has yet to begin. In addition, the waste disposal facility needs to be closely checked before the procedure can begin. Meanwhile, the level of highly radioactive water filling the concrete tunnel of the No.2 reactor had reached 93 centimeters below the ground's surface as of Saturday evening. That is a rise of 11 centimeters since the leakage of the water into the sea was stopped on Wednesday. Tokyo Electric plans to start moving the water in the tunnel into the reactor's condenser as early as Sunday. |
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April 09, 2011 The US military has demonstrated to the public drills by a special unit dispatched to deal with the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. About 150 members of the unit, which specializes in dealing with the effects of nuclear-related disasters, carried out the drills at Yokota Air Base in Tokyo on Saturday. In an exercise to rescue people trapped in a building, members wearing protective gear first carefully carried out procedures to measure radiation levels. In a tent set up near the building, radioactive materials were washed off the rescued people, and doctors performed physical examinations. The drill included rescuing people trapped in a car, and a surveillance robot was unveiled that can operate in hazardous environments. In preparation for a joint operation, the special unit confirmed various procedures with its Self-Defense Force counterpart, including ways to wash off nuclear contamination. The unit's commander says his team is working day and night along with the Self-Defense Forces to utilize their abilities to the fullest, and that their morale is high. The United States has also dispatched experts to help the Japanese government bring the situation under control at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. |
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