Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster

[Barking_Mad]

What's more curious is that these levels have come about despite the wind direction blowing the stuff mainly off the coast.

Current wind directions can be seen here

http://www.windfinder.com/windreports/windkarte_japan.htm

 

[Barking_Mad]

I thought the levels of radiation weren’t *THAT* high?

“Radiation fears have prevented authorities from collecting the bodies of as many as 1,000 people living in the evacuation zone who died in the 11 March earthquake and tsunami.

Kyodo news agency cited police sources as saying the corpses had been exposed to high radiation levels and would probably have to be decontaminated before they could be collected and examined by doctors.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/31/japan-pressure-nuclear-evacuation-zone

 

[elbows]

Im not sure its that curious really. Attention to the wind mostly seems to be paid when its blowing in a favourable direction, which has been the majority of the time. However there have been a number of occasions thats its been blowing stuff inland, for example when the levels in Tokyo started to rise for a couple of days, over a week ago. I aslso assume that the high levels of contamination found in certain areas north-west of the plant are because the wind was blowing in that direction during one of the major release events we saw much earlier in the crisis. Either way they are certainly lucky that the prevailing winds come from the west.

 

[elbows]

I thought the levels of radiation weren’t *THAT* high?



http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/31/japan-pressure-nuclear-evacuation-zone

If the bodies have been left outside then it will be more of a problem.

Pay no attention to the reassuring words about levels not being that high, or at least pay close attention to their careful use of the phrase 'no immediate risk' in weeks gone by.

I've been looking at the readings from the sea near the plant, which fluctuate quite a lot but have indeed been getting worse as the headlines suggest.

A few days ago I was going on about the rising temps & pressure at reactor 1. It did get rather high, they have managed to get it back down since, but one of the pressure readings is still rather high, and for some reason there has been a recent spike in the level of radiation dose measured inside the reactor, a value that has generally been declining at all reactors.

 

[Dr Jon]

I thought the levels of radiation weren’t *THAT* high?
...

IAEA Confirms Very High Levels of Contamination Far From Reactors

 

[elbows]

I wonder if we'd have been hearing so much from the likes of the IAEA about these high readings if Greenpeace had not released their own data from similar locations. After all, data showing the north-west got badly affected has been available for quite a long time now.

Still I think its worth pointing out that an evacuation of a larger radius is not necessarily called for by these figures, its specifically the north west of the plant that the high readings are found, so they probably dont need to evacuate to the same distance in, for example, the south west. I worry about how long it is taking the Japanese authorities to accept this stuff though and evacuate the areas concerned.

 

[Barking_Mad]

IAEA Confirms Very High Levels of Contamination Far From Reactors

The IAEA is reporting that measured soil concentrations of Cs-137 as far away as Iitate Village, 40 kilometers northwest of Fukushima-Dai-Ichi, correspond to deposition levels of up to 3.7 megabecquerels per square meter (MBq/sq. m).

....

This should be compared with the deposition level that triggered compulsory relocation in the aftermath of the Chernobyl accident: the level set in 1990 by the Soviet Union was 1.48 MBq/sq. m.

Still, not as bad as Chernobyl.....*cough*

 

[elbows]

Two stories that are making my blood boil right now, fucking disgraceful stuff:

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/31_31.html

NHK has learned that Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, has not provided every worker at the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant with radiation monitors, breaking government rules.

High levels of contamination have been detected at the Daiichi power complex following a series of hydrogen explosions that have scattered radioactive substances.

TEPCO says the quake destroyed many radiation monitors, so in some work groups only leaders have them, leaving others struggling to manage exposure.

The government requires companies to provide each individual worker with a radiation monitor when working under such conditions.

One worker who helped restore electricity to the plant, says each man must have been exposed to different levels of radiation, and that he has no idea how much contamination he was exposed to.

TEPCO says that those without monitors are assigned to low-radiation work, and that safety measures are in place.

The health ministry says exposure to large amounts of radiation is always a possibility during a nuclear power plant accident. It adds if the claims are true it is a serious problem, and that it plans to investigate the company's safety management.
Thursday, March 31, 2011 19:37 +0900 (JST)

And even worse, it seems the Japanese authorities are going to play a disgusting game of denial about radiation levels further from the plant:

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/31_34.html

Japan's nuclear safety watchdog says it sees no reason to change the zone for which the government advised residents to stay indoors or evacuate voluntarily.

The Nuclear Safety Commission made the remark to reporters on Thursday, following reports by the IAEA that radiation levels twice as high as its criterion for evacuation were detected in soil at a village outside the zone.

Commission member Seiji Shiroya said evacuation criteria in Japan are decided according to how much radiation people would be exposed to, not radiation levels in the ground. He said the IAEA's findings should be used as references, but that the commission's decision on the zone is correct.

Shiroya said the commission studies various factors, including radiation levels in the air and amounts of airborne radioactive substances taken into the body through breathing and eating.

He said the IAEA probably measured radiation on a grass surface with available equipment, but that he believes the commission's figures are more accurate when considering the effect on the human body.
Thursday, March 31, 2011 19:37 +0900 (JST)

 

[Barking_Mad]

some excellent high res photos of the site taken by an unmanned drone

http://cryptome.org/eyeball/daiichi-npp/daiichi-photos.htm

 

[elbows]

Yeah I've been gawping at those for a while. They make me want to speculate a bit about the fuel pools at 3 and 4 but in honesty Im not familiar enough with the precise dimensions & locations of several facilities inside the reactor buildings to be able to do so properly, so I will resist.

 

[elbows]

Other news:

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/04/82389.html

The health ministry said Thursday that beef in Fukushima Prefecture, where the crippled nuclear power plant is located, contained a radioactive material exceeding the legal limit, making it the first such detection in beef.

The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said 510 becquerels of radioactive cesium was detected in beef from Tenei, Fukushima Prefecture, above the 500-becquerel legal limit set under the food sanitation law.

But an official for the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said in Fukushima early Friday that it will conduct a fresh examination on beef, citing a significant gap in radiation levels between the sample taken in Tenei and other meat samples.

Tenei is located nearly 70 kilometers away from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/04/82390.html

More signs of serious radiation contamination in and near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant were detected Thursday, with the latest data finding groundwater containing radioactive iodine 10,000 times the legal threshold and the concentration of radioactive iodine-131 in nearby seawater rising to the highest level yet.

Radioactive material was confirmed from groundwater for the first time since the March 11 quake and tsunami hit the nuclear power plant on the Pacific coast, knocking out the reactors' key cooling functions. An official of the plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said, ''We're aware this is an extremely high figure.''

The contaminated groundwater was found from around the No. 1 reactor's turbine building, although the radiation level of groundwater is usually so low that it cannot be measured.

Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, acknowledged there is a possibility that radiation is continuing to leak into the sea, adding, ''We must check that (possibility) well.''

He reiterated that there are no immediate health concerns as fishing is not being conducted in the designated evacuation zone stretching 20 km from the plant and radioactive materials will be diluted by the time seafood is consumed by people.

Still, the nuclear regulatory body said it has decided to add another three areas located 15 km offshore for monitoring.

In another effort to prevent radioactive dust from being dispersed from the plant, where masses of debris are strewn as a result of explosions, Tokyo Electric initially planned to conduct a test spraying of a water-soluble resin on Thursday, but postponed the plan due to rain.

An official said rain would have slowed down the work and made it difficult to gauge the effects of the resin spraying.

On Thursday afternoon, a ship provided by U.S. forces carrying fresh water to cool down the reactors docked on the coast of the plant site to help the mission of water injection.

The full article also contains detail of the evacuation stuff I was ranting about earlier.

 

[elbows]

And now for something completely different:

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/04/82393.html

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.

If at first you dont succeed, try, try again.

 

[mincepie]

some excellent high res photos of the site taken by an unmanned drone

http://cryptome.org/eyeball/daiichi-npp/daiichi-photos.htm

Thanks! Loads of interesting stuff on that site....Not seen it before.

 

[elbows]

From a much longer Guardian article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/31/japan-battle-save-nuclear-reactors-failed

Robert Peter Gale, a US medical researcher who was brought in by Soviet authorities after the Chernobyl disaster, said recent higher readings of radioactive iodine-131 and caesium-137 should be of greater concern than reports earlier this week of tiny quantities of plutonium found in soil samples.

But he added: "It's obviously alarming when you talk about radiation, but if you have radiation in non-gas form I would say dump it in the ocean."

Gale, who has been advising the Japanese government, said: "To some extent that's why some nuclear power plants are built along the coast, to be in an area where the wind is blowing out to sea, and because the safest way to deposit radiation is in the ocean.

"The dilutional factor could not be better - there's no better place. If you deposit it on earth or in places where people live there is no dilutional effect. From a safety point of view the ocean is the safest place."

 

[elbows]

A couple of days ago, expert Richard Lahey, who has track record and experience with these sorts of reactors and safety issues, told the Guardian that he feared that core had melted through the bottom of the pressure vessel in unit two. Well a followup by IEEE Spectrum provides some more detail:

http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/...echalert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=033111

A couple of choice extracts:

Lahey says his analysis was based on the data sources seen by him and colleagues around the world, but that the information has been inconsistent and changes hourly. “It’s really hard to read the tea leaves,” Lahey says. “They keep blowing around… I may be wrong. I hope I’m wrong.”
However, his best take is that “all cores have melted, and it appears as though Unit 2 has melted through.”
His conclusion about reactor No. 2 comes largely from the amount of radiation in the water found there and the chemical contents of that water.

Lahey thinks there’s a chance that the corium escaped through narrow channels formed by the control rods, which in this type of reactor go all the way to the bottom of the vessel. In that case, the corium could have been extruded through the channels, forming something with more surface area.

No matter what has happened, cooling will have to be maintained at Fukushima for a long time. As an example, Lahey says it takes five years of immersion in water before the decay heat from a fuel rod freshly removed from a reactor is low enough for air cooling. “It’s not an event that goes all that fast,” he says.

 

[teqniq]

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/04/82390.html

Groundwater at nuclear plant 'highly' radiation-contaminated: TEPCO
TOKYO, April 1, Kyodo

More signs of serious radiation contamination in and near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant were detected Thursday, with the latest data finding groundwater containing radioactive iodine 10,000 times the legal threshold and the concentration of radioactive iodine-131 in nearby seawater rising to the highest level yet.

Radioactive material was confirmed from groundwater for the first time since the March 11 quake and tsunami hit the nuclear power plant on the Pacific coast, knocking out the reactors' key cooling functions. An official of the plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said, ''We're aware this is an extremely high figure.''

The contaminated groundwater was found from around the No. 1 reactor's turbine building, although the radiation level of groundwater is usually so low that it cannot be measured.....

 

[elbows]

Yeah I posted the groundwater story a little earlier. Although I've subsequently seen some confusion about it:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-...sts-showing-iodine-at-10-000-times-limit.html

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said test results may be incorrect that detected radioactive iodine about 10,000 times the safety limit in underground water at its Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant.

Tokyo Electric found the radioactive water near the No. 1 reactor turbine building while performing tests recommended by Japan’s Nuclear Safety Commission, according to a statement yesterday. The company later said those results and others may be wrong and it will re-examine the data.

I was looking at both groundwater and trench water results on Tepco's Japanese press release site. I dont know enough to analyse it all properly but some of the numbers certainly didnt look good. They did issue one correction already, but that was for trench water not ground water, and was just a correction from something that said 2.0 that should have been 2.8.

 

[elbows]

Follow-up to another story that made me angry earlier today:

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/01_09.html

TEPCO to ensure radiation monitoring for workers
Tokyo Electric Power Company says it may postpone low priority work at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant to ensure radiation monitoring for workers.

TEPCO said on Thursday that the quake destroyed many radiation monitors and that only 320 out of the 5,000 it had prior to the disaster are now available.

The company said that in some work groups only leaders had monitors and that 180 workers had worked without devices on one day.

TEPCO said it may postpone low priority work so no employee has to work without a device.

It also said it will collect radiation monitors from other plants to minimize delays.
Friday, April 01, 2011 07:36 +0900 (JST)

 

[elbows]

Todays news that I've seen so far is follow-ups to yesterdays:

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/04/82524.html

Groundwater at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is highly likely to be contaminated with radioactive materials, even though its operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. is reviewing its analysis released late Thursday due to erroneous calculations, the government's nuclear safety agency said Friday.

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said some of the analysis data on the groundwater presented by the utility known as TEPCO cannot be trusted due to the errors, casting doubts on the finding that the concentration of radioactive iodine in the water was 10,000 times the legal limit.

Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for the governmental nuclear regulatory body, said it was ''extremely regrettable'' that TEPCO had given incorrect radiation data at the plant for the second time. The agency has strongly warned the operator over the matter and urged it to take steps not to do so again, he added.

''TEPCO faces a grave situation as it is failing to live up to the expectations of people who are very worried by the company. Its data should be trustworthy,'' Nishiyama said.

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/04/82534.html

The government's nuclear regulatory agency said Friday it had issued another warning to Tokyo Electric Power Co. over the management of workers' radiation exposure at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, after it was found that there were not enough dosimeters to cover all of the workers.

Some workers were sharing dosimeters while doing the same job because many of the devices were destroyed in the March 11 quake and tsunami, a situation that was not ''desirable from the viewpoint of ensuring workers' safety,'' said Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for the agency.

 

[Sunray]

Those pictures show that its fucked beyond repair.

Dump millions of tonnes of stuff onto them to prevent what is clearly a catastrophe getting worse.

 

[Dr Jon]

Annotated Photos of Fukushima - 1

Annotated Photos of Fukushima - 2

 

[Dr Jon]

Those pictures show that its fucked beyond repair.

Dump millions of tonnes of stuff onto them to prevent what is clearly a catastrophe getting worse.

I was wondering whether some kind of foaming resin could be pumped in to make a temporary seal, to contain things until a heavy-duty concrete and lead seal can be constructed. Anybody know if this is possible?

 

[Giles]

I would go further and say that the problem is that nuclear stuff is too dangerous to be operated by humans. No matter how high the stakes, if you do a job or manage something for a long time, its almost impossible not to start becoming complacent. Throw in a load of academic and 'expert' arrogance, commercial interests, running reactors well beyond their designated lifetime, and its almost a wonder we dont have more problems with nuclear facilities than we have to date.

There are other types of reactor (see Thorium) that don't have the same potential for disaster even when things go totally wrong.

Giles..

 

[Dr Jon]

There are other types of reactor (see Thorium) that don't have the same potential for disaster even when things go totally wrong.

Giles..

Yeah. If there's a problem, you just switch off the proton beam.

See:
Thorium Energy Amplifiers
and
Subcritical thorium reactors (PDF)

 

[elbows]

Seen the newly released video that shows unit 4?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12931413

 

[Barking_Mad]

Seen the newly released video that shows unit 4?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12931413

impressive, for all the wrong reasons. That is a very large building with a lot of damage.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Excellent video with good info abot the fuel pool in Reactor 4

 

[Barking_Mad]

 

[Barking_Mad]

 

[Barking_Mad]

John Vidal in Guardian

I prefer the words of Alexey Yablokov, member of the Russian academy of sciences, and adviser to President Gorbachev at the time of Chernobyl: "When you hear 'no immediate danger' [from nuclear radiation] then you should run away as far and as fast as you can."

...


Five years ago I visited the still highly contaminated areas of Ukraine and the Belarus border where much of the radioactive plume from Chernobyl descended on 26 April 1986. I challenge chief scientist John Beddington and environmentalists like George Monbiot or any of the pundits now downplaying the risks of radiation to talk to the doctors, the scientists, the mothers, children and villagers who have been left with the consequences of a major nuclear accident.

It was grim. We went from hospital to hospital and from one contaminated village to another. We found deformed and genetically mutated babies in the wards; pitifully sick children in the homes; adolescents with stunted growth and dwarf torsos; foetuses without thighs or fingers and villagers who told us every member of their family was sick.

This was 20 years after the accident but we heard of many unusual clusters of people with rare bone cancers. One doctor, in tears, told us that one in three pregnancies in some places was malformed and that she was overwhelmed by people with immune and endocrine system disorders. Others said they still saw caesium and strontium in the breast milk of mothers living far from the areas thought to be most affected, and significant radiation still in the food chain. Villages testified that "the Chernobyl necklace" – thyroid cancer – was so common as to be unremarkable; many showed signs of accelerated ageing.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/01/fukushima-chernobyl-risks-radiation