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Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster

The news since I last posted has mostly been about water and evacuation zones.

The government finally got round to banning entry into the 20km zone, firmly spelt out which new areas to the north west are to be evacuated, whilst at the same time very disturbing images & stats came out on the number of animals left to die in the zone.

TEPCOs recovery plan was indeed used to spin some optimistic bullshit to evacuees that maybe they could go home in 6-9 months, without actually promising anything. Many suspect that some places will remain no go zones for decades to come, but we shall see, I would expect that over time they will somewhat reshape the zone to take account of the contamination realities, and so a few places within the crude radius may become available to humans again sooner.

The stories about water are numerous, covering a variety of areas:

Data from the sea showing high contamination in the area of the previous leak, but a reduced level further away from this spot, suggesting their containment strategy is at least partially effective.

Worrying stories of contaminated groundwater rising at many locations, including reactors 5 & 6. Seems that the site required active pumping to deal with this stuff during normal times, and in these abnormal times this task has not been performed, leading to these issues.

Mixed news on dealing with reactor 2 heavily contaminated basement & trench water. They have successfully started to pump this water to another building where it will be stored. But at one point after pumping the water level in a trench was higher than when they started, although a day or so later it sounded like the level was some cm down from the original level, so will have to keep watching this one to see if its the 'fighting a losing battle' that its often sounded like.

Some concern from the regulator about TEPCOs plans to flood the drywell of reactor 1, up to the level of the fuel rods. They are concerned that the extra weight will make the structure vulnerable to damage from further earthquakes. As this article points out, water is thought to already be accumulating in the containment vessel already anyway, due to steam condensing. They think it is about half-way up the bulb-shaped part of the vessel so far.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/23_05.html

Also related to water weight, the unit 4 spent fuel pool is in the spotlight again, as I feared it might be when I briefly mentioned this subject some days ago:

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/23_12.html

Tokyo Electric Power Company has decided to be more cautious about the volume of cooling water injected into the spent fuel pool of one of its reactors.
This is due to fear that the reactor building might be further damaged by the weight of the water itself.

The company has been injecting water daily into the spent fuel pools of the reactors to prevent fuel rods from being exposed and further damaged.

At the Number 4 reactor's pool, the water temperature was about 91 degrees Celsius on Friday, more than 50 degrees higher than the normal level, and TEPCO was forced to inject 200 tons of water. Substantial amounts of water will have to be injected daily.
 
"The operator of the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says the level of radioactive water in a tunnel at the No.2 reactor is unchanged.

Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, has prioritized the operation to transport water from the No.2 reactor. The level of radiation there is especially high and the contaminated water is hampering other work to bring the crisis under control.

TEPCO says the water was 89 centimeters below the top of the tunnel at 7 AM on Tuesday. The level has been about the same for the past few days.

TEPCO also says the contaminated water levels are rising in the tunnels at the No.3 and No.4 reactors.

It says water was 98 centimeters below the top of the tunnel at the No.3 reactor, a rise of 3 centimeters in 24 hours. TEPCO has set one meter as the standard level at which it should begin removing the contaminated water.

At reactor No.4, the water was 115 centimeters from the top of the tunnel, a rise of 5 centimeters in 24 hours.

But TEPCO has not found a location to store contaminated water from these 2 reactors. It will continue to carefully monitor the situation."


http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/26_18.html


"TEPCO says a survey last Thursday found an increase in the density of radioactive substances in the water in the basement of the No. 4 reactor's turbine building.

The company says the levels of cesium-134 and 137 increased about 250-fold and iodine-131 increased about 12 times compared with one month ago.
TEPCO says contamination of this level requires them to prioritize the transfer or disposal of the water."


http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/26_03.html
 
A bonus feature of the following map, which shows levels of radiation detected at various locations on site, is that the putzmeister pumping equipment is named elephant here. This caused a blackadder quote about not quite so many elephants to enter my mind.

http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushima-np/f1/images/f1-sv-20110423-e.pdf

Some of the nasty debris listed on this map has since been removed using the automated heavy equipment. But check out the level of radiation levels by the water transfer pipe, especially near the end of its journey. Think this is carrying the water that measured in excess of 1 millisievert (how much in excess they dont know or arent saying) so its not surprising that the level near the pipe is pretty high. But why it is so much higher at that point near the end of its journey is a question.
 
Much of the news continues to be water-related (increasing the amount pumped into reactor 1 to try and slowly fill the drywell), conflicting reports about unit 4 pool leakage, and plans for storage & processing of contaminated water on site.

But there are other bits here and there, such as this shocker:

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/28_18.html

The Tokyo Electric Power Company says a female employee who was exposed to radiation levels of more than 3 times the safety limit at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant may have inhaled radioactive substances when indoors.

The woman, in her 50s, was in charge of material management at the plant.

She was found to have been exposed to 17.55 millisieverts of radiation. This is more than triple the 3-month limit for a female worker, which is set at 5 millisieverts.

Closer examination has revealed that the woman suffered 13.6 millisieverts of internal radiation exposure.

The woman was in a building which was contaminated by high-level radioactive substances following a hydrogen explosion on March 12th. She may have inhaled some of the airborne radioactive material as she wasn't wearing a protective mask.

TEPCO has apologized for its lack of precautions against internal radiation exposure. Two more female workers who were in the same building may have also exceeded their exposure limit.

The government's nuclear safety agency has demanded that the utility find out why this happened and draw up prevention measures.
 
Much of the news continues to be water-related (increasing the amount pumped into reactor 1 to try and slowly fill the drywell), conflicting reports about unit 4 pool leakage, and plans for storage & processing of contaminated water on site.

But there are other bits here and there, such as this shocker:

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/28_18.html

I saw this before I went to work this morning. What the hell were they thinking letting her work without a mask?

That with the other story I remember about only gangleaders being issued with dosimeters because of a shortage, and yet every bleeding reporter stood on that hill overlooking Fukushima had one pinned to their coat.

It just beggars belief sometimes.

Also , I would assume that everyone gets scanned as part of the decontamination procedures when leaving the site, and as they say that she probably ingested the material on the 12th of March- can we assume they've been sitting on this story till now, and if they have - I wonder what else are they sitting on?
 
I dont know, but the various failures on the information front are discussed in a fascinating way in this article:

http://japanfocus.org/-Makiko-Segawa/3516

So in addition to the coverups and downplaying from the company & government, there is also the opposite problem that some people who live in the contaminated areas are in denial.

There are some especially sinister details regarding the media and internet/rumours:

"Freelance journalists and foreign media are pursuing the facts, even going into the radiation exclusion zone. However, surprisingly, the Japan government continues to prevent freelance journalists and overseas media from gaining access to official press conferences at the prime minister's house and government."
Uesugi stated that since March 11th, the government has excluded all internet media and all foreign media from official press conferences on the "Emergency Situation". While foreign media have scrambled to gather informationabout the Fukushima Reactor, they have been denied access to the direct information provided by the government and one consequence of this is that "rumor-rife news has been broadcast overseas."
In fact, access has been limited in two ways. First, while Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano Yukio holds twice daily press conferences for representatives of the big Japanese media, registered representatives of freelance and internet media are limited to a single press conference per week. Second, in contrast to Japanese media who are briefed regularly by Edano and periodically by Prime Miniser Kan, foreign media are briefed exclusively by administrative staff.
Uesugi also notes that at TEPCO press conferences, which are now being held at company headquarters, foreign correspondents and Japanese freelancers regularly ask probing questions while mainstream journalists simply record and report company statements reiterating that the situation is basically under control and there is nothing to worry about. One reason for this, Uesugi suggests, is that TEPCO, a giant media sponsor, has an annual 20 billion yen advertising budget. "The media keeps defending the information from TEPCO!” “The Japanese media today is no different from the wartime propaganda media that kept repeating to the very end that ‘Japan is winning the war against America,’” Uesugi exclaimed.

here is one particularly telling example of the media shielding TEPCO by suppressing information. This concerns “plutonium”. According to Uesugi, after the reactor blew up on March 14, there was concern about the leakage of plutonium. However, astonishingly, until two weeks later when Uesugi asked, not a single media representative had raised the question of plutonium at TEPCO's press conferences.
On March 26, in response to Uesugi’s query, TEPCO stated, “We do not measure the level of plutonium and do not even have a detector to scale it.” Ironically, the next day, Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano announced that “plutonium was detected”.
When TEPCO finally released data on radioactive plutonium on March 28, it stated that plutonium -238, -239, and -240 were found in the ground, but insisted that it posed no human risk. Since TEPCO provided no clarification of the meaning of the plutonium radiation findings, the mainstream press merely reported the presence of the radiation without assessment (link). Nippon Television on March 29 headlined its interview with Tokyo University Prof. Nakagawa Keiichi, a radiation specialist, “Plutonium from the power plant—No effect on neighbors.”
On March 15, Uesugi criticized TEPCO for its closed attitude toward information on a TBS radio program. For this, he was immediately dismissed from his regular program.

Now the Japanese government has moved to crack down on independent reportage and criticism of the government’s policies in the wake of the disaster by deciding what citizens may or may not talk about in public. A new project team has been created by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication, the National Police Agency, and METI to combat “rumors” deemed harmful to Japanese security in the wake of the Fukushima disaster.
The government charges that the damage caused by earthquakes and by the nuclear accident are being magnified by irresponsible rumors, and the government must take action for the sake of the public good. The project team has begun to send “letters of request” to such organizations as telephone companies, internet providers, cable television stations, and others, demanding that they “take adequate measures based on the guidelines in response to illegal information. ”The measures include erasing any information from internet sites that the authorities deem harmful to public order and morality.
 
It gets more sickening by the day.

Let the bad news out a few weeks later and it isn't quite as bad!

Standard line from TEPCO (and the Japanese government) seems to be, "oh, sorry, things were worse thyan we thought at the time". And, now they're looking to dump a whole load more shit into the ocean.

In the meantime...

The UK is wondering what to do with the Worlds biggest stockpile of nuclear waste.

It's all a bit fucked up really. I grew up on the Welsh borders and saw 2 legged lambs born the Spring after Chernobyl. A dispropionate number of young men suffered from prostate cancer. Compared to Chernobyl this is huge. Many Tens of Thousands will die. Many people and animals will be born mutated.

After Chernobyl cod was being cuaght with huge tumours. All this shit is spilling into the Pacific. I guess it will be years (if ever) when we are actually told the facts. The most concerning thing for me is that we're actually being fed a line that says it's not as dangerous as we thought. It fucking well is. We are actually poisoning the sea :(
 
Its really not possible to accurately claim that this event is huge compared to Chernobyl. The contamination info from many miles around the plant simply does not support the idea that more radioactive material was released than was the case with Chernobyl. Its not over yet, something else could yet happen to cause another huge release, but as things stand right now there is not an insane amount of new material escaping from the site every day.

The effects on the sea ar very unclear, far more a case of nobody really knowing what the longer term effects will be, than anything being covered up. Its not only us that must wait years for a full set of facts to become clear, experts and those managing the situation must also wait a long time before everything becomes clear. The most obvious example of this is that we would expect it to be years before the reactor cores themselves can actually be seen, and the full extent of fuel damage understood.

Im not sure who you think is feeding us a line that its not as dangerous as we thought. Not as dangerous as who thought? There extremist views at both ends of the 'health consequences of radiation' debate. I get the sense that for the vast majority of people, they see radiation as being more dangerous than the reassuring governments, agencies and experts tell us, but they dont know quite how far to take this idea. If I had seen mutated animals for myself as a result of previous disaster then Im sure my views would be affected accordingly. But as I didnt see such things or highly credible evidence of them myself, I have a slightly different view. I tend to assume that more of the cancers in our world may be caused by radiation that the authorities want to acknowledge. But then I also expect that the same is true of a variety of other forums of pollution, and the nature of some of the stuff we eat and drink.
 
Ouch:

http://ht.ly/4JUF4

An adviser to Prime Minister Naoto Kan on the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant told the prime minister’s office Friday he will resign in protest over what he called the government’s impromptu handling of the crisis.

”The government has belittled laws and taken measures only for the present moment, resulting in delays in bringing the situation under control,” Toshiso Kosako, professor on antiradiation safety measures at the University of Tokyo’s graduate school, told a news conference.

He also blasted the government for hiking the upper limit for emergency workers seeking to bring the crippled plant under control to 250 millisieverts from 100 millisieverts after the crisis broke out.

”The prime minister’s office and administrative organizations have made impromptu policy decisions, like playing a whack-a-mole game, ignoring proper procedures,” the radiation expert said.

He also urged the government to stiffen guidelines on upper limits on radiation levels the education ministry recently announced as allowable levels for primary school grounds in Fukushima Prefecture, where the radiation-leaking plant is located.

The guidelines announced by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology ”are inconsistent with internationally commonsensical figures and they were determined by the administration to serve its interests,” he said. – Nikkei
 
More on the resignation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/world/asia/01japan.html?_r=1&hp

In one of his most damaging charges, the adviser, Toshiso Kosako, drew attention to a recent government decision to allow children living near the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant to receive doses of radiation equal to the international standard for nuclear power plant workers. That level is far higher than international standards set for the public. “I cannot allow this as a scholar,” said Mr. Kosako, an expert on radiation safety at the University of Tokyo.

He also blasted the government for what he said was a lack of transparency in releasing radiation levels around the Fukushima Daiichi plant, and for setting an overly high limit on radiation exposure for workers who have spent weeks struggling to keep the plant under control.

I said the Japanese governments handling of this sort of thing was a disgrace, and its turning out even worse than I initially feared. Where is the outrage?
 
Hmmm,better late than never I suppose, though it was a very bad sign when they withheld the data in the first place:

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/02_32.html

Belated release of radiation forecast data
The Japanese government is about to begin releasing data projecting the spread of radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant that it initially withheld for fear of causing panic.

The data in question is in a computer system called SPEEDI that predicts the spread of radioactive substances based on actual radiation measurements at various locations and weather conditions.

A joint task force of the government and Tokyo Electric Power Company says about 5,000 undisclosed bits of data will be released from Tuesday.

The information will be carried on the websites of the science ministry, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, and the Nuclear Safety Commission.
The secretary-general of the joint task force and prime the minister's advisor, Goshi Hosono, apologized for the delay in releasing the data.

Hosono said the task force withheld the information because some data were based on overly rigorous assumptions and feared it may trigger panic.

But he said the task force now believes that panic can be avoided if it offers proper explanations on the projections. He also promised to promptly release all such data in the future.
 
The 'safe' radiation limit for kids scandal continues to generate news:

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110503a1.html

Physicians for Social Responsibility, a U.S. nonprofit organization of medical experts, has condemned as "unconscionable" the Japanese government's safety standards on radiation levels at elementary and junior high schools in nuclear disaster-stricken Fukushima Prefecture.

The U.S. group said in a statement released Friday, "Any exposure, including exposure to naturally occurring background radiation, creates an increased risk of cancer.

"Children are much more vulnerable than adults to the effects of radiation, and fetuses are even more vulnerable," it said.

The medical experts group is part of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, which won the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize.

"(Twenty millisieverts) for children exposes them to a 1 in 200 risk of getting cancer. And if they are exposed to this dose for two years, the risk is 1 in 100. There is no way that this level of exposure can be considered 'safe' for children," the statement said.
 
Other news from the last week that I had not got round to mentioning here:

They stuck a camera in unit 4 spent fuel pool and released the images, it was extremely brief and only showed on part of the pool, but what was visible showed the racks & fuel in relatively good shape.

The plan to fill the drywell with water, being tried first at reactor 1, didnt go very well from what I can tell. I'm awaiting further reporting on this but it sounds like they had to stop because water level was not rising as hoped, and pressure had fallen.

Reactor 3 seems to be heating up again a bit according to data from recent days, probably nothing to get worked up about yet but will keep an eye on it.

Water level of unit 1 spent fuel pool skimmer surge tank has fallen a lot in recent days, level was previously steady for a long time. ot sure what this means yet, anotehr one to keep an eye on though.

There has been talk of a plan to construct barriers in the ground to prevent material from seeping out into the wider area.

There has also been more news about the 'captured regulators' issue, they are looking at just how many people have gone from working for the electricity companies to work for the regulator in recent decades.

There is a report of problems at another nuclear plant in Japan, but conflicting info so far so I will wait before speaking further on this one.
 
The school stuff caused a protest involving a bag of soil and got some press attention:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/02/parents-revolt-radiation-levels

Furious parents in Fukushima have delivered a bag of radioactive playground earth to education officials in protest at moves to weaken nuclear safety standards in schools.

Children can now be exposed to 20 times more radiation than was previously permissible. The new regulations have prompted outcry. A senior adviser resigned and the prime minister, Naoto Kan, was criticised by politicians from his own party.

A group claiming to represent 250 parents in Fukushima visited the upper house of parliament and presented government officials with a bag of radioactive dirt from the playground of one of the affected schools. A geiger counter clicked over it with a reading of 38 millisieverts.

"How dare they tell us it is safe for our children," said Sachiko Satou of the Protect Fukushima Children from Radiation Association. "This is disgusting. They can't play outside with such risks. If the government won't remove the radioactive dirt then we'll do it ourselves and dump it outside the headquarters of Tokyo Electric."

Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and other environment and anti-nuclear groups submitted a petition against the regulations. They accused the Nuclear Safety Commission of meekly accepting the new safety limit after just two hours of closed-door discussions with government officials.

However, representatives of the commission denied agreeing that 20 millisieverts was safe. Education ministry officials fudged demands for an explanation. "I think 20 millisieverts is safe but I don't think it's good," said Itaru Watanabe of the education ministry, drawing howls of derision from the audience of participants. He promised the government would carefully monitor the situation and do all it could to get radioactivity down to 1 millisievert.

I suspect (& strongly hope) that the Guardian got their microsieverts and millisieverts confused (again), because a 38 millisievert reading from that small amount of soil would be extremely bad news and does not match my expectations at all. 38 microsieverts is far more plausible.
 
They are starting to prepare for human entry into reactor 1 building:

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/03_27.html

Tent to stop radioactive leakage
Preparations are under way to stop radiation from leaking from one of the reactor buildings at Fukushima Daiichi so restoration work can begin at the damaged nuclear plant.

Tokyo Electric Power Company employees prepared on Tuesday to install a tent at the entrance of the No.1 reactor building. It's supposed to prevent radioactive material from leaking into the environment when workers go in and out of the building.

The tent is 1.5 by 1.3 meters wide, and 2.2 meters high. It looks like a cabin made of flame-resistant sheets and boards. The pressure inside it will be higher than in the reactor building, so air won't leak outside.

TEPCO workers will start installing the tent on Wednesday. When it's in place, they will enter the Number 1 reactor building as early as Thursday for the first time since a hydrogen explosion occurred there in March.

The first job for workers will be to install polyester tubes in the building to purify the radioactive-tainted air. Then they will fill reactor one's containment vessel with water to steadily cool it down.
 
A story that shines light on the dodgy press setup in Japan:

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110503f1.html

Tsunehisa Katsumata, chairman of Tokyo Electric Power Co., admitted in a news conference on March 30 that on the 11th, the day the twin disasters hit the Tohoku region and crippled Tepco's Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, he was traveling to Beijing with retired Japanese journalists, expenses for which were partially paid by the utility.

"We probably paid more than our share" of the travel fee, Katsumata said.

Internet reporter Ryusaku Tanaka was shouted down by other journalists as he tried to question the Tepco executive.

The incident laid bare the oft-assumed cozy relationship between Tepco and major Japanese media organizations — members of the exclusive "kisha" (press) club that critics claim are preventing reporters from asking the utility tough questions about the nuclear accident. Similar complicity has long been assumed at other press clubs attached to the nation's various bureaucratic bodies.

I may have made mention of the basics of this story some time ago, but that article continues and contains lots more detail about press stuff in Japan.
 
More on the captured regulators:

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110504a1.html

The past 50 years have seen 68 former elite bureaucrats parachuting into top positions at the nation's 12 electricity suppliers after retiring from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, including five who landed at Tokyo Electric Power Co.

At present, 13 retired career-track METI bureaucrats hold senior positions at electric power companies under the practice of "amakudari" (descent from heaven).

METI, which oversees 10 electric utilities and two electricity wholesalers, investigated the matter after the crisis at Tepco's Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant fueled criticism of the practice.

The fact that former elite bureaucrats land key positions at private-sector companies in industries they previously oversaw has been widely criticized for creating cozy, corrupt relations, as well as allegations that this has led to slack supervision of the nuclear power industry.
 
I think that a lot of these "cozy" relationships will undoubtably bite them on the arse in the long run. The longer this goes on (and I can't see any quick solutions) the more angry the japanese will become, scapegoats will be looked for - and who better then these so-called "overseer's" ?
 
Also quite scary

TEPCO checks radiation levels in seabed near plant

"Radiation levels 100 to 1,000 times above normal have been detected in the seabed near the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

The plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company, conducted its first contamination analysis of the seabed near the plant using samples from 2 points 20 to 30 meters deep on Friday.

Samples collected about 15 kilometers north of the plant contained 1,400 becquerels of cesium-137 per kilogram and 1,300 becquerels of cesium-134.

Samples taken around 20 kilometers south of the plant contained 1,200 becquerels each of cesium-137 and cesium-134 per kilogram.

The samples from the 2 points were also found to be contaminated with iodine-131."


http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/04_02.html
 
Thats not good news for that seabed for several centuries then :(

And now a musical interlude of somewhat dubious quality but its just wacky enough to post, and I like the thunderbirds-esque bit near the start.

 
News in brief:

People went into reactor 1 building, for short periods of time, to install ventilation equipment. This is to improve conditions so that humans can enter the building more in future in order to construct the new cooling system as part of the long plan to resolve things.

They are having another go at increasing the water pumping rate at reactor 1 to try to fill the containment with water.

A variety of temperature measurements at reactor 3 are continuing to climb. THey have slightly increased the amount of water they are pumping into the reactor to try to counter this, but as yet its made no difference.

They have put more water in the spent fuel pools of reactors 2 & 4.
 
Oops:

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110508a6.html

Late expert gave forewarning of Fukushima nuke plant disaster draws attention on Net

A short paper penned 16 years ago by an antinuclear scientist is drawing attention on the Internet for having warned about the dangers posed by the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Station and other old atomic plants.

Jinzaburo Takagi, the late former director of the Citizens' Nuclear Information Center, also cautioned the government and utilities about their policy of not assessing the safety risks for nuclear power stations beyond their assumed scenarios.

Takagi, who died in 2000, blasted the government and power companies for "refusing to consider emergency measures in the event of an earthquake because they assume nuclear power plants will not break down in an earthquake and have stopped taking further steps at all."

He also argued that the Great Hanshin Earthquake was a wakeup call for getting nuclear power facilities ready for emergencies, such as being "attacked by a tsunami along with a quake."
 
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