Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster

[elbows]

Thats more than a little hysterical. Given that the other side have been playing things down, it may be necessary to go slightly overboard in the other direction, but even so that article is too much. Clearly not hanging by fingernails or else the recent quakes would have caused new woe. Id say they were hanging by one arm myself. It was wrong of me to be so dismissive of the potential effects of loss of power after the earthquake the other day, if they lost all power for many hours or days then bad things would very likely happen at the reactors, but they have got through shorter outages and quakes at the plant without much further woe so far.

As for the bad water, the levels at number 2 on Friday morning are right back to where they were before they started pumping after out. So yeah, thats going to be a real struggle to deal with, although I dont think they will let it all go back into the sea, at least not at this stage.

 

[Dr Jon]

http://blog.imva.info/medicine/exposure-levels

Exposure levels going up everywhere

Very interesting. Michio Kaku has the sanest ideas about this IMO.

Dr. Kaku still advises entombment in a giant slab of concrete, with 5000 tons of cement, sand and boric acid but if that ever happens it will be months away and take a huge effort that would take many more months.

Dr. Kaku says that the, “Tepco utility people are outclassed and overwhelmed and should be removed from their positions. They are “making it up as they go along,” he says of the efforts of engineers to get this disaster under some control” He too says, “We would see increases in leukemias and thyroid cancers from the massive amounts of radioactive iodine being released.”

 

[laptop]

Clearly not hanging by fingernails or else the recent quakes would have caused new woe.

Have you ever broken up a lump of concrete?

Bang! Nothing.

Bang!

Bang! Still sitting there sullenly.

Bang!

Bang!

Bang! It splits.

The point: when each new earthquake starts, you have no idea whether it's the one that causes serious further damage to the structure. Letting all the water out, for example.

I'd say they were hanging by one arm myself.

Small comfort

 

[Dr Jon]

Radiation risks from Fukushima 'no longer negligible'

The risks associated with iodine-131 contamination in Europe are no longer "negligible," according to CRIIRAD, a French research body on radioactivity. The NGO is advising pregnant women and infants against "risky behaviour," such as consuming fresh milk or vegetables with large leaves.

This is getting ridiculous. They should've started burying those nukes weeks ago.

 

[elbows]

The point: when each new earthquake starts, you have no idea whether it's the one that causes serious further damage to the structure. Letting all the water out, for example.

Small comfort

True. Im not really trying to suggest that the situation is anything but fragile, but at the same time if I'd gone too far with this sentiment weeks ago, I would be rather amazed to find that no new major catastrophes had happened in the period since then.

Certainly I dont find any comfort in anything that has happened to date, really I've been quite grumpy and infuriated with how they have handled what has happened so far, and how little we know of each reactor and pools current state, I've been so busy speculating about that stuff that I've not felt much need to imagine future woes. Something real bad could yet happen tomorrow, or a month from now, and I'll just have to think about it if and when it happens. Obviously TEPCO and the government agencies should not have that luxury, I hear they have now gotten round to some basics such as ordering TEPCO to plan for the possibility of future earthquakes and tsunami's that could affect the Fukushima plant. Very recently they have been busily moving some generator facilities to higher ground and getting backup fire pumps etc in case the equipment currently in use gets destroyed. So as future risk is in the news at the moment, I will speculate on this stuff very briefly.

Aside from new earthquake or tsunami damage, I imagine one of the largest future risks is that if something happens at one part of the plant that causes a large increase in radiation that leads to a worker evacuation, the present cooling facilities have to be manned to keep working. So if the evacuation lasted more than a few hours, we would expect the situation at the other reactors and fuel pools to deteriorate further, potentially leading to new catastrophes and massive releases of radiation.

 

[elbows]

Radiation risks from Fukushima 'no longer negligible'

This is getting ridiculous. They should've started burying those nukes weeks ago.

I think it went beyond ridiculous quite some time ago. I'm still unable to say whether burying it would the best plan, presently I tend to presume that there would be significant risks with this strategy too. Continuing to try to cool the various facilities does make some sense, although the huge downsides are there for all to see (continued emissions and the creation of ever more water with very radioactive stuff in it). The downsides of other options are not so obvious because they arent trying them, yet anyway, so its just too easy to demand they try one of these alternatives.

Given that the timescale of the current strategy sucks, I do wonder if they will be able to carry it on as planned without pressure to do something else becoming too great, especially if obvious setbacks continue to emerge. I havent properly got my head around what is currently being released each day, so I cant decide how nutty to go about this issue. Its certainly worthy of more attention. As is the article you posted as it covers another topic I have ranted about lack of attention to - the issue of radioactive dose when we eat or drink contaminated things, as opposed to external dose rates. I recommend reading the full report, using google translate or whatever, as the total picture it gives is a little bit more balanced than the stories that have been written about it, which understandably focus on the most alarming aspects of the report.

The report (some interesting graphs even if you dont speak the language):

http://www.criirad.org/actualites/dossier2011/japon/risques_en_france_v5.pdf

Google translated (the graphs dont come through, and microsieverts gets abbreviated to mSv instead of μSv so watch out):

http://translate.google.com/transla...es/dossier2011/japon/risques_en_france_v5.pdf

 

[mincepie]

I find it hard to visualize what it might be like - I've seen many photos over here at http://www.cryptome.org/ - and being a fairly technical person, wanted to know more.

I was reading about this guy - but I can't see any of his books on Amazon, or really find any of the photos on the web. Any ideas?
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/n...finally-finds-an-audience-20110415-1dhtv.html

 

[elbows]

I dont have much joy searching for Kenji Higuchi's stuff either, the only thing that turns up is that old channel 4 documentary that is on youtube, which is well worth a look. I dont have a link to it handy right now Im afraid.

As for visuals of the plant, the recent photos and video of the unit 4 spent fuel pool sample collection were interesting because they were higher quality than previous ones, although its frustrating that we only get to see things from a couple of vantage points. Water can be seen in number 4 pool, although its hard to get a sense of how far below the refuelling bridge it is.

As well as cryptome, I sometimes use the official TEPCO page for this stuff, especially as it includes downloadable versions of the videos:

http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/news/110311/index-e.html

 

[elbows]

The water woes continue. It had previously been announced that the water at unit 2 was back to the same level as before pumping started, well now it is above the original level:

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/16_09.html

Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, finished transferring part of the wastewater -- about 660 tons -- from the tunnel to a condenser in a turbine building on Wednesday.

The transfer lowered the water level in the tunnel by 8 centimeters, but it began rising again, exceeding the previous level by 2.5 centimeters as of Saturday morning.

 

[elbows]

Meanwhile, the newspaper Asahi Shimbun reported, without citing its sources, that a secret plan to dismantle Tokyo Electric Power Co., which runs the radiation-leaking Fukushima plant, was circulating within the government. The proposal calls for putting TEPCO, the world's largest private electricity company, under close government supervision before putting it into bankruptcy and thoroughly restructuring its assets. Most government offices were closed Saturday, and the report could not be immediately confirmed.

Taken from a NYT article that covers a lot of other recent developments, including levels of radioactive substances in the sea rising again:

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/04/15/business/AP-AS-Japan-Earthquake.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

 

[robbo180265]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13107846

"Japan's government had ordered Tepco to come up with a timetable to end the crisis, now rated on a par with the world's worst nuclear accident, the 1986 Chernobyl disaster."


"The operator of Japan's crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has said it expects to bring the crisis under control by the end of the year."

Considering that contaminated water is still leaking into the ocean and Tepco has been unable to access any of the reactors, I wonder where they got the timetable from? That said, I hope that they are able to stick to it without any other problems arising.

 

[stuff_it]

They have clearly made it up to make it not sound so bad. They obvs haven't really got a clue how long it will take.

 

[IC3D]

Radiation levels in the sea near reactor 2 rose to 6,500 times the legal limit on Friday, up from 1,100 times a day earlier, Tepco has said, raising fears of fresh radiation leaks.

I've not read anywhere how far this radiation spreads or how long it lasts, Japans eats a lot of seafood fish swim all over the place, I eat Tuna /hysteria

 

[robbo180265]

I've not read anywhere how far this radiation spreads or how long it lasts, Japans eats a lot of seafood fish swim all over the place, I eat Tuna /hysteria

From what I can tell (and I'm no expert) there's nothing to worry about at the moment (assuming we're being give all the facts)

However, if contaminated water is alowed to keep leaking into the ocean (and I don't see how they can stop it happening whilst they are spraying water over the reactors) then I would imagine that the situation will become more serious.

More than anything else - they need to get access to the reactors, I believe that they cooled down Chernobyl's reactor with liquid nitrogen - perhaps that would be the cleaner and possibly safer way of dealing with this?

Bottom line is that the reactors need to be cooled before entombing them in concrete can happen.

 

[elbows]

More than anything else - they need to get access to the reactors, I believe that they cooled down Chernobyl's reactor with liquid nitrogen - perhaps that would be the cleaner and possibly safer way of dealing with this?

Bottom line is that the reactors need to be cooled before entombing them in concrete can happen.

From what I've read there was a plan to freeze the ground under the reactor at Chernobyl using liquid nitrogen, but at some point it was deemed unnecessary and aborted. This measure was considered because of the fear of what would happen if the melted core continued to travel downwards. Also nitrogen gas often features in reactor disaster management because it is pumped into the reactors to prevent the buildup of hydrogen, and this has certainly been happening at unit 1 reactor at Fukushima, with plans to o it at the other reactors if they deem it necessary.

Certainly when it comes to entombment I think it would be hard and risky to try to cover all the different bits of the plant at this stage. At a minimum I think they want to do something with a lot of the contents of the fuel pools first. Burying the reactors in their current state sounds a bit iffy to me too, especially as there are concerns about any tombs ability to withstand earthquakes in the region. So I can se why they seem to favour putting up some sort of skeletal structure that then has a form of sheeting wrapped round it - this would be designed to withstand earthquakes & tsunami's and would also allow them to retain some access to the reactors (not that humans can enter the buildings right now).

The timescale, as we were discussing just the other day, is pretty horrible but I've no idea whether there are any viable alternatives that could be done more quickly.

Wonder if the robots they've used today will give us some useful data abot the state of one or more reactors. Its not clear exactly which parts of the buildings these robots have been sent to.

 

[elbows]

Some detail:

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/04/86083.html

TEPCO also said it will put special covers on the heavily damaged outer buildings of the Nos. 1, 3 and 4 reactors as an emergency measure to prevent radioactive materials from spewing out of the buildings and contaminating the air and soil, with plans to complete the work in roughly six to nine months.

Over the medium term, however, the utility plans to cover the reactor buildings with concrete walls and roofs, it said.

The company said it will pour water into the structures containing reactor pressure vessels for the Nos. 1 and 3 reactors within roughly three months, while putting back into the pressure vessels any water that leaks out in the process.

For the No. 2 reactor, whose containment vessel is feared to have been damaged, the utility plans to seal with sticky cement a part in the vessel that is believed to have been breached. It hopes to begin cooling the reactor within roughly three months in the same manner as the No. 1 and 3 reactors.

Also contains an answer to my question about the robots:

The two robots used at the No. 3 reactor are designed to read temperatures, radiation levels and the levels of oxygen concentration inside the building, a maneuver made necessary due to the fear that workers entering the space would be exposed to high levels of radiation.

Data collected through the maneuver will be used to gauge whether it is safe for workers to enter the building and determine what work will be required to bring the crippled reactor under control.

The utility will consider examining the Nos. 1 and 2 reactors in the same manner, using two U.S.-made robots equipped with moveable arms.

 

[elbows]

The following contains more detail on TEPCOs plans for dealing with the situation going forwards:

http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/11041707-e.html

Much of this has been mentioned in the news this weekend but without such detail. One new thing I notice is that they plan to install a supporting structure under unit 4's spent fuel pool, which rather suggests this area is not in great shape right now.

 

[Stanley Edwards]

Another 9 months of radioactive waste leaking into the sea. How can this in anyway be considered the worst since Chernobyl? 9 more months at least of shit As far as I can tell this is the worst ever case of radioactive contamination already, and now we're told it's going to go on for at least another 9 months. Very bleak.

 

[Stanley Edwards]

At its peak last month, radioactive iodine in the sea around the complex was recorded at 7.5 million times safe levels.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...ion-leaks-could-take-nine-months-2269246.html

 

[elbows]

The whole 6-9 months plan is a guesstimate anyway, just to show that they have some sort of plan, and with some suspicion that the timing of this plan has something to do with the Japanese governemnt being under pressure to give evacuees some sort of good news. I dont know of any other incidents that involved such releases into the sea, so Fukushima not directly comparable with anything else when it comes to this stuff. The worst of the leakage may already have ceased, or there could yet be a lot more to come, its anybodies guess at this point.

In terms of the event as a whole, its worse than Chernobyl in terms of the number of different nuclear facilities that have gone wrong and leaked, and in terms of how long its taking them to contain the escape of radiation. In terms of the total release of nuclear shit, it is thought to have only released about a tenth of the stuff that Chernobyl released, but again a lot of this is based on estimates.

 

[xes]

esimates from TEPCO, who aren't really to be belived, as they've got their arses to cover. And cover it they will. Just like BP have done, and are still doing, in a big way. Fuck massive corps, fuck them in the bottom. They don't give a fuck about anything but profit.

 

[elbows]

Todays news is mostly about the robots that they sent in to some of the reactor buildings. The levels of radiation detected are certainly high enough to pose very real problems for their future plans, although not as high as I thought they might have been. Will have to wait and see what the results for reactor 2 are, where suppression chamber damage is strongly suspected and they've sent the robots ina day later than for reactors 1 & 3.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/18_27.html

TEPCO said the robots surveyed the first floor of the No.1 reactor for about 50 minutes and detected maximum radiation readings of 49 millisieverts per hour.
A person staying in such an environment for 5 hours would be exposed to 250 millisierverts of radiation -- the legal limit for nuclear workers in emergency situations.

The survey inside the No. 3 reactor lasted for about 2 hours, but the plant operator says the robots had difficulty moving around because of the debris. The maximum radiation reading was 57 millisieverts per hour.

The power company says it hopes to find locations where workers can go to carry out decontamination tasks so it can implement its schedule for bringing the troubled plant under control.

For comparison, the radiation level some meters above the unit 4 fuel pool was recorded at 84 millisieverts/hour and the water thats been causing problems at reactor 2 was an unknown amount over 1000 millisieverts/hour. In the early days of the crisis they observed 11.9 millisieverts/hour somwhere on site, and one particular location between reactors 3 & 4 had a reading of 400 millisieverts/hour. So you may see why I thought the readings inside the reactor buildings could be a fair bit higher than the ones reported today have turned out to be. Still its hardly good news by any means.

 

[elbows]

esimates from TEPCO, who aren't really to be belived, as they've got their arses to cover. And cover it they will.

Well yes thats a problem, although its unclear to what extent it still remains an issue. They do release some data which paints things in a bad light, they have reported a variety of setbacks, and its very hard to judge quite what they may know and arent saying - possibly lots, possibly not much. At least the explosions laid to rest the temptation to do a full cover up, it became impossible at that point.

Anyway the top TEPCO bosses gave some indication the other day that they will be resigning at some point in the future. I believe their president may have been heckled in parliament as well, still looking for details.

The government are taking a lot of flak as well, especially as the weeks fly by with little progress. There is plenty to criticise them for, especially the evacuation which I personally feel has involved some negligent and disgraceful decisions, especially in regard to some locations to the north west of the plant. See this story for the latest example of the political troubles they are having now:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/18/japanese-voters-naoto-kan-step-down?INTCMP=SRCH

I think the media have failed us too, plenty of errors, and a lack of asking the right questions. After the initial few weeks of the crisis, the BBC has been poor, Guardian only a little better, and from what I've seen only the New York Times comes anywhere close to continuing to cover the story reasonably well.

 

[elbows]

TEPCO also has a share mystery going on:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/19/business/global/19tepco.html?_r=1&hp

TOKYO — Japanese regulators and executives of the Tokyo Electric Power Company are asking questions about a seemingly coordinated series of stock purchases two weeks ago that led to an undisclosed buyer or buyers acquiring a large bloc of the utility, which owns Japan’s dangerously damaged nuclear power plant.

Regulators want to know whether the trades, valued at up to $600 million and placed from Hong Kong during the week of April 3, were structured to circumvent Japanese securities laws, which require the owner of more than 5 percent of a publicly traded company to file disclosure papers identifying the shareholder.

Depending on the prices at which the buy orders were executed, they could add up to nearly 10 percent of Tepco’s shares.

 

[elbows]

See rather than just reporting what has been said, the NYT actually bother to place it in some context and notice when it contradicts prior statements or implicitly suggests something new:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/18/world/asia/18japan.html?pagewanted=1&sq=fukushima&st=cse&scp=1

The Japanese government and the company, known as Tepco, have been overly optimistic in the past. Several weeks ago, for instance, the company said it hoped that its success in bringing live power lines back to the plant would enable workers to quickly restart the existing cooling systems even though the equipment would have had to survive not just the natural disasters, but the explosions that rocked the plant in the following days.

The announcement on Sunday that new cooling systems would be built was the first admission that efforts to restart the old system had failed.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Robot pictures from 1,2 & 3

Robot pics from 1,2,& 3

 

[elbows]

Speaking of the robots:

Robots entered Reactors Nos. 1 and 3 on Sunday and measured the radiation inside. But when two robots entered Reactor No. 2 on Monday, the steam inside was so dense that a robot mounted with a camera was unable to get a clear image of a radiation sensor carried by the other robot, Japanese officials said.

The radiation sensors are not part of the robots’ original equipment, and must be carried separately without the capacity to store readings, officials said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/20/world/asia/20japan.html?_r=1&ref=world

This would seem more excusable if this stuff was happening just a week or two after the crisis began. Nuclear emergencies are certainly a great way to demonstrate how far humanity lags behind the curve of progress that sci-fi was able to imagine many decades ago.

Anyway the rest of that article goes on about the water woes & plans they have, as well as confirmation that they are going to flood the containment vessels of reactors 1 & 3 (they cant do it at reactor 2 because it leaks).

In a further effort to improve cooling, Mr. Nishiyama said on Tuesday that a decision had been made to flood the primary containment vessels of the No. 1 and No. 3 reactors with enough water to cover up the sides of the reactor pressure vessels up to the level of the uranium fuel rods inside.

 

[Dr Jon]

Radioactive bullshit fallout

 

[trabant]

Radioactive bullshit fallout

Is this your blog?

 

[Dr Jon]

Is this your blog?

'fraid not.
It's the sort of thing I'd do tho.