Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster

[laptop]

Details of a not too surprising early coverup emerge:

http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201105130370.html

You can see how management would be all, like "oh fuuuuck. we have to find out what's going on in there".

But it'll be months before we find out whether those workers were volunteers, told it was dangerous - or whether they were instructed to go into danger, in the dark, as it were.

Thanks, also.

 

[robbo180265]

Yeah - I'd like to add my thanks too.

I may not add a lot (mainly because you seem to cover it so well) but I do read all your posts Elbows.

 

[elbows]

Cheers. We certainly seem to be in the middle of another set of bad news stories at the moment.

It sounds like they have found some of the 'missing water' at reactor 1, down in the basement where the torus (suppression chamber) lives. They also had robots going round some parts of the reactor building again, and one of them picked up a really high radiation dose reading at the south east of the building. 2000 millisieverts or more per hour, which is 2 sieverts, which means a serious and immediate health impact for humans if they spent any length of time in that part of the building. A few hours there and you'd be knackered I think. Personally I wouldnt even want to spend a few minutes anywhere near an area thats radiation dose can be measured in whole sieverts.

Despite all that has been learnt about the state of reactor 1 in recent days, it sounds like TEPCO are going to try increasing the water injection rate again, Im not quite sure why given that they now know how knackered the reactor vessel is, and that there are leaks from containment vessel too. Perhaps they want to see if they can get the water level sensor they repaired, that revealed water in reactor vessel was much lower than previously indicated, to actually register some water, even if just for a brief period of time.

They have also been going on about their plans to cover reactor buildings by erecting a new outer frame and covering it in material. This was mentioned before but it sounds like they are about to start work on this at reactor 1. I dont know how effective this method will be, but I expect it will cause some excitement on the internet at some point, when the inquisitive and suspicious minds start wondering what is going on beyond the erected screen.

A 62 year old worker died at the plant. They are saying its not radiation related, and was a suspected heart attack which is plausible though obviously I have no way to judge myself. Certainly I wouldnt want to be lifting heavy equipment whilst wearing protective clothing, mask etc, in a stressful environment, especially if I was getting on in years.

A while ago I mentioned reactor 3 temperature rises. These continued for a while, getting company and press attention, and there are now far more different temperature measurements being published. The temperature kept on rising for many days, so they started injecting water at a higher rate. This did not seem to make much difference initially, but then some of the temperatures started to come down considerably. Other temperatures have not behaved in quite such a clean way, there are some fluctuations that I have not seen anybody try to explain. There are probably a few possible explanations for why the temp started going up in the first place, such as water leaking at an increased rate, or something shifted position in the reactor vessel, its even possible that one of the aftershocks affected something.

A lot of the reporting isnt very detailed these days, so I havent provided links to articles about all of the stories above. I will try to wait for some quality ones to emerge even though they lag behind the initial reporting of these developments.

 

[elbows]

Seems I was a bit out of date with reactor 3. Although some temps are down, others have been going up considerably. And they actually started injecting more water on may 12th, using an additional pipework system that connects to the reactor, in addition to the system they were already using.

 

[mincepie]

It's all good stuff Elbows -thankyou and keep it up - this is hardly getting any coverage in the mainstream media.

 

[elbows]

An interesting document which shows what they now think happened to the levels of water & the core at unit 1. Basically the fuel started to be exposed within just a few hours of the tsunami hitting, and the fuel was completely uncovered not long after.

http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/images/110515e10.pdf

 

[elbows]

To put this latest detail in context, the fuel was just starting to melt at reactor 1 before the first post in this thread was written, within an hour it was well under way and after about 16 hours the fuel had sunk to the bottom of the reactor.

This means that most of the reassuring bullshit that we saw on the telly in the first few days was happening after 1 meltdown had already taken place.

 

[elbows]

Here is a WSJ article that covers much of the recent news:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703509104576325110776621604.html

According to that they have a new theory for why reactor 4 exploded - hydrogen from unit 3 got into 4 via some pipes.

 

[elbows]

That completely different nuclear plant that the government requested be shutdown because it is in an earthquake zone, encountered some difficulties when shutting down the final reactor:

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110516a5.html

Chubu Electric Power Co. said Sunday that trouble with the cooling systems at the Hamaoka power plant prevented its No. 5 reactor from achieving a cold shutdown for about two hours but did not result in the release of radiation.

The Nagoya-based firm said the problem in the reactor's cooling system was found Saturday evening after a gauge indicated that around 400 tons of seawater had flowed into the condenser at around 4:30 p.m., most likely because of a piping problem.

The water also found its way into the reactor, making it necessary to desalinate it, the company said.

Seawater in the reactor is quite an event, I wonder if there is more to this story. This and incidents at two other nuclear reactors in Japan would probably have featured more in the news if Fukushima Daiichi was not grabbing all the attention.

I think they may be very concerned about the temperature situation at reactor 3. The following is a very dodgy computer translation, which may mean they are worried about a hydrogen explosion inside the reactor containment. (previous hydrogen explosion at 3 was said to have occurred outside primary containment)

He added, aides Hosono, "No. 1 is the temperature itself is relatively stable at around 100 degrees, but the meltdown is indeed very serious, given that some cold exactly, but the situation is stable have. The concern rather is No. 3, did not cool well necessarily, but how to respond to the No. 3, accounting for the weight in my head saying, "No. 3 is advanced cooling showed a recognition that there is an urgent need to address.

Saito, acting secretary general of New Komeito, "Unit 3 of Fukushima nuclear power plant, in situations where the temperature is raised, not in a position to be put nitrogen to prevent hydrogen explosion, explode, so do not be nothing, if rapid We need protection, "he said

Translated from this article: http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20110515/t10015898941000.html

 

[laptop]

Seawater in the reactor is quite an event

Understatement of the week!

 

[elbows]

OK its all starting to come out now, as by the sounds of it the meltdown of reactor 2 & 3 have been discussed in press conferences today.

Also TEPCO have released lots more data from the first hours and days after the tsunami struck. In addition to updating the temperature, pressure etc data that is published in reasonably understandable format, they have also published a lot of logs, notes etc from the first hours of the crisis. Its a nightmare trying to understand it all but it likely shows several things which make it likely meltdown happened in all 3 reactors.

I'll post a link to the japanese page but I dont know as anybody here will want to look at any of it

http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu/fukushima-np/index10-j.html

If you do, I recommend at least skimming through the first hefty pdf that is in section 4 of that site, because after about a quarter of the way through there are some photographs of what I can only describe as 'whiteboards from hell', the scribblings of those trying to manage things in the hours after trouble hit.

In regards to why they have decided to go on about meltdowns and release all this data now, there was a hefty leak of early data to a newspaper recently and this is perhaps a response to that, TEPCO releasing the info themselves so that they can gain some control over the narrative about this data which is now taking place, and the meltdown implications. Im not 100% sure about this though.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Holy shit.
What now?

 

[elbows]

Holy shit.
What now?

You mean the stuff I was just going on about?

Its only news if you didnt buy the idea of meltdown at all 3 reactors when it was first discussed, including in the mainstream media, at the time. Its only news again now because certain data was not published sooner, and TEPCO & government decided to shy away from the term meltdown and somehow pretend that a fair percentage of the fuel rods were still sitting there, still resembling rods.

On of the contentious aspects of the term meltdown, which isnt a technically precise term, is whether a 'proper full meltdown' also includes the core leaving the reactor pressure vessel, or even leaving the containment vessel. At this point TEPCO & government are prepared to talk of reactor 1 melted core making some holes in the reactor pressure vessel, and that a similar thing quite likely happened at reactors 2 & 3. But they tend to say that they think this corium is still in the reactor vessel. If the story keeps evolving then at some point we may cross this threshold, and get into territory where they end up discussing what %age of the core may have dropped down into containment. The actual reality, as opposed to what some people think and TEPCO say, is elusive to me, so I keep an open mind for now.

None of this changes what we know about how much radioactive shit escaped the plant, which is in many ways what counts, but it does have some ramifications for their grand plan to stabilise things. This plan is due to be updated on Tuesday, which is another possible reason why all of this detail is coming out now, as they will have to change the plan a bit. Im not sure it will contain any new surprises since it seems they have been talking to press about it already, with a 'recirculate the dodgy water from the basements back into the reactors' being a contender to replace the doomed 'fill the containment with water' idea from the original plan.

 

[elbows]

OK it turns out that the data on the first hours at the plant after the earthquake has come out now because TEPCO finally gave the report containing this data to NISA the government nuclear agency (NISA asked for it some week back).

One of the stories that it seems this early data tells, is that a cooling system at reactor 1 failed before the tsunami:

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/17_04.html

An emergency condenser system at the Number 1 reactor functioned for less than 10 minutes after the earthquake. The failure lasted for 3 hours.

The utility suspects that workers manually shut down the system as pressure inside the reactor became so low that they were afraid of damage.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

On of the contentious aspects of the term meltdown, which isnt a technically precise term, is whether a 'proper full meltdown' also includes the core leaving the reactor pressure vessel, or even leaving the containment vessel. .

Yeah I think this has what has confused me a little.
Looked like shock full on meltdown cover up news to my untrained brain.

 

[elbows]

Im tired after trying to look at too much data. Other stuff that came out recent included a video of various scenes on the site, and some documents & photos which showed the damage to the electricity supply to the plant (including a fallen transmission tower).

TEPCO published their updated roadmap yesterday, plenty of positive spin but also a reminder that in a coupe of areas they really have made progress. Plenty of severe hurdles ahead though.

Also very recent news suggests that they sent workers with oxygen packs into reactor 2 building, but they could only stay inside for 14 minutes due to large amounts of steam in the building. This is not s surprising because previously when they sent robots to this building they had trouble with the cameras steaming up.

Im short on time right now but will try to post links to some of this stuff later.

 

[xes]

There was a blog on the go the other day, which stated that the radiation levels have exeeded the ability to measure them. (only source was another blog, if you want, I can dig it out) To me, it sounded like scare mongering, but I'm not one to say. What with the state of the news being released, IMO, you have to take everything in, to get the real picture. Even if that means wading through tonnes of bullshit, to get to the juicy bits.

Would this be a likely scenario?

 

[elbows]

Radiation levels where? Yes, I need more info to be able to discuss that stuff at all really.

Radiation levels at several locations on site have been higher than the equipment used was capable of reading at the time. For example when they measured dose rate above one of the contaminated water areas some weeks back, level was said to be over 1000 millisieverts, and we dont know how much over 1000 it was because likely that particular detection tool maxed out, or they had to leave the area before thorough analysis could be performed. But this is all stuff local to the plant, I dont think there should be any sort of radiation detection levels much further away from the site that have begun to get anywhere even vaguely close to being above the maximum that can be read.

 

[Dr Jon]

Q&A With a Former Fukushima Dai-1 Plant Manager

 

[elbows]

Cheers, that was interesting stuff.

Here is news about what workers found when they went into reactor buildings 2 & 3 in recent days:

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/19_40.html

Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, says radiation levels inside the Number 2 reactor building at the Fukushima Daiichi plant appear to be much lower than in the Number 1 building.

TEPCO says if high humidity inside the Number 2 building can be reduced, the relatively low level of radiation will make it easier to work in than Number 1.

Four workers entered the Number 2 building on Wednesday through a double door on the south side --the first entry by humans since an explosion in mid-March.

The utility says the workers measured levels of radiation in the air as they walked around the containment vessel, and came up with readings ranging from 50 millisieverts per hour to less than 10.
The workers found three pools of water on the floor, and saw water dropping down from above in some places.

The presence of so much water is apparently due to the condensation of steam rising from the spent fuel storage pool on the upper floor.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/19_23.html

Workers have entered the Number 3 reactor building at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant for the first time since a hydrogen explosion 3 days after the March 11th quake and tsunami.

Tokyo Electric Power Company says 2 workers in protective suits and carrying air tanks went inside for about 10 minutes from 4:30 PM Wednesday to check radiation levels.

TEPCO says the workers measured radiation of 160 to 170 millisieverts per hour around the door of the containment vessel.

The utility says it would be difficult to start work on injecting nitrogen gas needed to prevent a hydrogen blast into the containment vessel under such high radiation levels.

 

[robbo180265]

This seems quite worrying:

"The operator of the damaged nuclear power plant in Fukushima has reported a sharp rise in the concentration of a radioactive material in samples of seawater near the Number 3 reactor.

Tokyo Electric Power Company says it detected 110 becquerels of radioactive cesium-134 per cubic centimeters in seawater samples taken on Wednesday morning.

The level is 1,800 times the national legal limit, compared to 550 times, which was reported the previous day.

The utility also found 120 becquerels of cesium-137, 1,300 times higher than the limit.

Last Wednesday at the same location near the water intake of the Number 3 reactor, water contaminated with highly radioactive substances was found flowing into the sea from a pit. TEPCO says it detected cesium-134 at 32,000 times the legal limit.

In its latest announcement, TEPCO said the concentration of radioactive iodine in seawater samples from the same location fell from 1,900 times the limit on Monday to 630 times on Tuesday.

The utility also said it detected radioactive materials at levels higher than the national limit at 2 of the 4 survey points along the shoreline near the plant.

It says cesium-134 with a concentration level 1.8 times the limit was found at a point 330 meters south of the water drainage gates of the Number 1 to 4 reactors.

Thursday, May 19, 2011 02:57 +0900 (JST)"

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/18_37.html

 

[Stanley Edwards]

...


In regards to why they have decided to go on about meltdown now...

Because it's old news. The immediate threat is gone. All this bollocks about readings from 300 Meters away also... christ almighty! Are people really that gullable?

In the meantime 2 headed babies are being born in Southern China... no, really, mutant babies. Who would have thought it?

 

[robbo180265]

In the meantime 2 headed babies are being born in Southern China... no, really, mutant babies. Who would have thought it?

Link? or it didn't happen!

 

[toblerone3]

Thank you elbows, it's nice to hear a level headed view every now and then

Good on you xes, frankly I thought you were one of the pillars of Urban.

 

[elbows]

All this bollocks about readings from 300 Meters away also... christ almighty! Are people really that gullable?

Eh? When measuring sea contamination you want to do it at a range of distances so you can see how stuff is spreading.

In the meantime 2 headed babies are being born in Southern China... no, really, mutant babies. Who would have thought it?

Got any sources for that? I would expect there to be some issues, I would expect us to struggle to find out about it in useful detail, and the use of the word mutant is not likely to help. I would not like to predict exactly which countries other than Japan may suffer noticeable health consequences.

 

[elbows]

Also to stand even the tiniest chance of making 2 headed-baby stories seem at all plausible, you should probably have waited more than a couple of months. To grow an extra head would probably take more than 2 months dont you think, would need to start earlier in the development process eh.

 

[Stanley Edwards]

Here's One...

http://www.cncworld.tv/news/v_show/14880_Conjoined_twins_not_to_separate.shtml

 

[Stanley Edwards]

Also to stand even the tiniest chance of making 2 headed-baby stories seem at all plausible, you should probably have waited more than a couple of months. To grow an extra head would probably take more than 2 months dont you think, would need to start earlier in the development process eh.

You need to do more research.

I saw mutated lambs being born on Welsh mountians within a couple of months of Chernobyl. Possibly just a coincidence.

 

[elbows]

You need to do more research.

I saw mutated lambs being born on Welsh mountians within a couple of months of Chernobyl. Possibly just a coincidence.

Come on man, the pregnancy of sheep does not last as long as that of humans, its months shorter, and I doubt you know exactly how many months after Chernobyl you saw mutant sheep.

 

[elbows]

Here's One...

http://www.cncworld.tv/news/v_show/14880_Conjoined_twins_not_to_separate.shtml

The detail of this case poses problems, I dont see how you can hope to pin this on radiation.

They share a gall bladder, spleen, pelvis and reproductive system - but have separate spines, stomachs, kidneys, and respiratory systems.

Yet although they have two hearts, physical tests show that one is an abnormal shape.

Doctors say their condition might be caused by a genetic disorder. It means they did not grow and seperate in the early period their mother's pregnancy.

Now how do any of these details fit with a radiation event that occurred only just over 2 months ago? Even if they were born prematurely the timescale is all wrong.