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Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster

No worries about the comments, plenty of that is my own fault anyway - if I want to have a conversation then I should probably not post long, sometimes technical rants so often. And there have probably been plenty of food etc stories that I could have posted but didn't bother, since it all tends to point in the same direction.

Poor old Japan is suffering from a double-whammie when it comes to dealing with the contamination. Not only do they suffer from the usual way that nuclear industry & issues are 'treated sensitively' shall we say, but there are also the aspects of the culture and politics of Japan which appear to lend themselves to this sort of thing. However to get into detail about this requires an understanding of Japan that I lack, and as an outsides such critiques would run the high risk of coming across as crude caricatures. And I could say that all nations have their own kinds of corruption and blind spots where people play along with the established fiction even if they are aware of its true nature on some level. Perhaps it is easier to spot it when we are well outside the bubble in question, but Japan certainly seems to have a pretty powerful and overt way of living with lies on so many levels.
 
Japan’s Last Nuclear Reactor to Go Off-line
Japan’s last operating nuclear reactor, Hokkaido Electric Power Co.’s No. 3 unit, at its Tomari plant in northern Japan, will shut down for a scheduled inspection on 5 May. This will leave Japan without any nuclear-generated power, something that hasn’t happened since the nation’s first commercial plant went on line in 1966.
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I got this email today. Do you think it is scaremongering?

Dear friends,



Japan's Fukushima nuclear reactor is not safe, and without urgent attention the crumbling site could spark an unprecedented global disaster. With no action from local government, nuclear experts are now saying international intervention is critical, but only a massive global call can push the UN to help. Sign the urgent petition and forward to everyone:

​
I’m writing with a personal plea for help from Japan. A nuclear inspector just said that the fate of my country and much of the world depends on Fukushima's Nuclear Reactor Number 4. If this damaged structure collapses, the spread of radiation would go way beyond Japan's borders and be truly catastrophic.

Since last year's tragic earthquake and tsunami, a pool of highly dangerous spent nuclear fuel is being held in reactor 4’s crumbling structure. Experts say another strong earthquake would cause the pool to collapse and emit such high radiation that my family and the 35 million people in Tokyo would be forced to evacuate. It would also contaminate the skies across the Pacific and into Asia. The area around the toxic pool is vulnerable to regular seismic shocks, but, amazingly, my government is denying the risks, likely desperate not to cause panic.

The best way to curb this lethal threat is a global wave of public pressure on my government to agree an emergency plan with UN experts. A US Senator and tens of thousands of people across Japan are raising the alarm. But it's going to take a global citizen chain reaction to prevent a nuclear meltdown, with each of us asking ten friends to ask their friends to join the call for action. Click below to call on the UN and Japanese PM Noda, then forward to everyone:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_japans_nuclear_meltdown_global_d/?vl

The reactor 4 pool has no walls or roof and there are thousands of spent fuel rods inside containing ten times the amount of radioactive material than was released in the Chernobyl nuclear accident. This material, Cesium 137, is one of the most hazardous materials on the planet -- it gives off radiation that can remain dangerous for hundreds of years. To avoid spontaneous fire due to radioactivity alone, the dilapidated pool must be constantly cooled. If it collapsed and a fire ensued reactor 4 is just 50 meters from the other reactors that contain thousands more spent fuel rods. The scope of disaster is nearly unfathomable!

Nuclear scientists say the spent fuel must be removed from the storage pool as fast as possible to a dry and safe facility. But so far the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), Japan's embattled nuclear energy giant responsible for the clean up, insists they have reinforced the structure and is relying on the vulnerable pool storage system. People across Japan distrust TEPCO and do not understand why my government is leaving it up to this agency when they were already caught lying about the safety of Fukushima reactors before last year's disaster.

The Japanese people should not have to live on the brink of nuclear disaster. And fears that an accident would have global impact led one Japanese politician to call the risk, ‘the ultimate catastrophe for the world’. Global experts are now raising their voices and US Senator Wyden, who just visited the site, has publicly called for action and offered US help. I appeal to you to help get the UN's attention now to force my government to welcome an international team of nuclear experts to clean up Reactor 4 and remove this risk forever. Sign the urgent petition then forward this to everyone:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_japans_nuclear_meltdown_global_d/?vl

The people across my country are still reeling from last year's earthquake, tsunami and nuclear catastrophe, but together, Avaaz members here have helped make Japan the first developed nation on earth to go nuclear free. Now let's together remove this last remaining lethal threat before it is too late.

With hope and determination,

Michiharu, for the whole Avaaz team

MORE INFORMATION

Fukushima Reactor 4 poses massive global risk (CTV)
http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/World/20120518/fukushima-dai-ichi-risk-reactor-4-120519/

The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster Is Far From Over (Huffington Post)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-alvarez/the-fukushima-nuclear-dis_b_1444146.htmll

Doomsday scenarios spread about No. 4 reactor at Fukushima plant (The Asahi Shimbun)
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201205100051

Fukushima Daiichi’s Achilles Heel: Unit 4′s Spent Fuel? (The Wall Street Journal)
http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2012/04/17/fukushima-daiichis-achilles-heel-unit-4s-spent-fuel/

Japan Nuclear Plant May Be Worse Off Than Thought (New York Times)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/30/world/asia/inquiry-suggests-worse-damage-at-japan-nuclear-plant.html?_r=1
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Well reactor 4 spent fuel pool is one of a number of concerns on site that are in some sense legitimate. However its received a completely disproportionate amount of attention and in recent months almost anyone with an agenda that isn't exactly pro-nuclear has been milking it excessively and making a circus of hysteria out of the whole thing. The reactor 3 pool deserves more attention than it gets, as do some other things.

Given how bad the original disaster was, I get frustrated by the hyping of potential future problems, no hype should be necessary. But I guess humans don't work in such a manner, especially in challenging circumstances where judgement of risk has gone from one extreme to the other.
 
Maybe the hype is necessary, if Tepco aren't letting on the full extent of the damage, then prehaps sensationalising it is the only way to get it out to the forefront of peoples awareness. Otherwise people may just think as it's not still in the news, then the problem has all gone away. (look at Deepwater for a prime example of that, that is still a very much ongoing problem, being swept under the carpet or at the very leasy, being ignored by the media)
 
There are many areas where TEPCO can be criticised, sometimes to a very great extent. Information about the reactor 4 pool is not one of those areas as far as Im concerned, since I don't understand what people think they have covered up in regards to reactor 4 pool. Rather, people started wanking on about 'reactor 4 building leaning to one side', despite a lack of evidence. TEPCO have done tests to demonstrate that it isn't, but the worst scaremongers are of course absolutely uninterested in these results. By the same token, when TEPCO put reinforcements underneath the pool, the scaremongers did not go 'oh well thats something, chance of doom is reduced'. Short of magically removing the fuel from the pools very quickly, I don't think there is anything TEPCO can do at this point to engage with these people. They keep trying though, e.g. I think just yesterday they invited the press to the site again and are bound to have focussed on reactor 4 building

Greater awareness of issues such as food contamination would be helpful. I see less use in telling people that the whole country or the whole world (yes some have gone that far) is doomed if reactor 4 pool collapses, and then to talk as if its almost inevitable that the pool will collapse. I think its fine to discuss the potential risks, but not in such a manner that some people are needlessly filled with extreme fear, or at the expense of other relevant info that could actually be used to make a difference to peoples health & risk now, given the contamination thats already out there.
 
And here is a video of the latest press & government minister visit. The camerawork is pretty shoddy but it gives a sense of what its like to be wandering around on the upper floor of reactor 4. The fuel pool is covered by a white sheet, and in the background we can see heavy equipment that is there to remove the upper floor & roof debris.

 
Well it seems like the situation persists where no matter what they do, the company and the government can only make the reactor 4 pool PR situation worse. When they say nothing, people assume they are withholding something, and when they publish a load of detail people seize on whatever they can to suggest it shows worse damage than previously thought.

This article gives a reasonable summary of recent events in this regard, although its not completely accurate in a few places I don't think its worth boring you with the details.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/27/w...n-japan.html?_r=2&pagewanted=2&pagewanted=all

In fact when moaning about this stuff I've probably let me love of technical accuracy and wanting people to point their fears at exactly the right targets, override a broader point about nuclear PR being undermined. Perhaps I shouldn't complain too much that detail is wrong, when its the industry & governments own fault that their PR isn't working now, even when they are being open or honest. They were much too slow at taking a more open approach, and the entire industries PR was built on multi-decade safety myths that went boom with the Fukushima explosions. And the fuel pool issues, whilst not at this point considered responsible for the contamination (reactor 4 explosion is no longer blamed on the pool), drew attention to longterm failures for the issue of nuclear waste to be dealt with comprehensively.
 
Scientists have found bluefin tuna off the coast of California that have been contaminated by radiation from Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant.

According to findings published in the US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, it is the first time huge migrating fish have been shown to carry radioactivity such a large distance.
Click to expand...

http://www.euronews.com/2012/05/29/radioactive-fish-from-fukushima-found-near-california/

They had someone on the news talking about how suprised he was by this development. Where did they expect all that cesium to go?
 
I'm not clear whether the scientists' surprise is about tuna crossing the Pacific, or something else.

Excellent opportunity to plot their migration, anyway :)
 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-18718057

The crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant was "a profoundly man-made disaster", a Japanese parliamentary panel has said in a report.

...

While the report is highly critical of all the key parties, it digs even deeper. The panel called the disaster "Made in Japan", because the mindset that allowed the accident to happen can be found across the country.

It flagged up the bureaucracy's role in both promoting and regulating the nuclear industry, and also cultural factors such as a traditional reluctance to question authority.
The report was expected to use strong language, but not many thought it would be this harsh.

The panel also found that there was a possibility that the plant was damaged by the earthquake, contradicting the official position that only the tsunami contributed to the disaster.

It could put further pressure on the government, which recently authorised the restart of two nuclear reactors in western Japan. They were declared safe in April but the plant also sits on top of a fault line.
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Despite certain aspects of Japanese mindset making the "made in Japan" conclusion reasonable, it is still a dangerous let-off for the global nuclear industry and governments.

For example the following aspects are hardly unique to Japan:

Corporate irresponsibility
Captured regulator
Dangerous elements in the way that the need to prevent panic and economic decline is balanced against the public health threat in terms of evacuation, food safety etc.

For all the academic talk of the need to have credibility and honesty when conveying information to the public, I struggle to think of good examples of nations where the practical application of public communication is balanced in a manner that addresses these principals when it matters most.
 
Im just reading the executive summary now. Fair play to them for not mincing their words.

For example:

The Commission concludes that the government and the regulators are not fully committed to protecting public health and safety; that they have not acted to protect the health of the residents and to restore their welfare.
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What really pisses me off when I look back at the first couple of weeks of this thread is that it was possible to sit here in the middle of the UK and be better informed about the environmental consequences than the people who needed to evacuate were.

For example I didn't need any specialist understanding in order to talk in a timely fashion about the change in wind direction which resulted in the bulk of the land contamination on March 15th, although at the time I was not aware that events at reactor 2 coincided with this and pumped out the largest amounts of radioactive substances at just the worst moment.

And then by March 23rd there was information available to the public which highlighted the most severe contamination in areas to the north-west of the plant, and yet many people living in those places didn't get that info and were not evacuated till weeks later.
 
I have become very emotional when reading this part of the report, which deals with a survey of workers who were there on March 11th. Especially the 2nd half of the document which features things written in the comments section of the survey. Very upsetting. Its a shame many of those who gushed about the Fukushima 50 at the time probably won't read this document.

http://naiic.go.jp/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/workers_survey.pdf
 
Finally some pictures of the tsunami at its worst at the plant. There are loads more but comparing these two probably gives a good sense of how high the water got:

120713_014.jpg


120713_019.jpg


From http://photo.tepco.co.jp/en/date/2012/201207-e/120713_05e.html
 
elbows said:
For example I didn't need any specialist understanding in order to talk in a timely fashion about the change in wind direction which resulted in the bulk of the land contamination on March 15th, although at the time I was not aware that events at reactor 2 coincided with this and pumped out the largest amounts of radioactive substances at just the worst moment.
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Looks like a government panel is going to issue a report that overlaps heavily with what I said there, although they are talking about a SPEEDI simulation that was not available to the public at the time, whereas I was using an internet source that was available to anyone who knew about it and cared to look.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20120716_02.html

A government panel investigating the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident will issue its final report next week.

It will say residents could have avoided unnecessary exposure to radiation if the government's system for predicting the spread of radioactive substances had been used to plan their evacuations.

The government activated the SPEEDI system using unconfirmed data from the day the accident occurred because it failed to obtain information on where radioactive materials originated. But officials did not publicize the results.

The panel is studying the Science Ministry's SPEEDI results and the evacuations of residents. It plans to issue its final report on July 23rd.

The report will say SPEEDI predicted in the afternoon of March 15th last year that radioactive elements would spread inland toward the west and northwest. Residents were fleeing in those directions on that day.

SPEEDI also forecast that from the dawn of March 16th a change in wind directions would send radioactive substances out over the Pacific Ocean.

The report will say people could have avoided unnecessary exposure to radiation if the government had used SPEEDI predictions in planning evacuations and if residents had been ordered to stay inside on March 15th and seek refuge on the following day.

Discussions will be held to determine how SPEEDI forecasts can be used in planning future evacuations.

Earlier this month, another panel of experts commissioned by the Diet issued its report which included a different conclusion on SPEEDI from that of the government committee.

It said SPEEDI forecasts cannot be used as a basis to craft initial evacuation plans due to the limited accuracy of weather information to be used in predictions.
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Former NYTimes jouno reports readings of 106.87 microsieverts/hour where tepco reported 9.3 microsieverts/hour.



Would TEPCO lie that much? I certainly wouldn't put it past them.
 
I can explain that one, and its no secret. TEPCO decontaminated the areas around their site monitoring points a while back, in some cases I think they even shielded the detection points against specific hotspots of radiation. There is actually a sensible reason for doing this - they want those monitoring points to pickup radioactive substances in the air, not existing contamination on the ground. This is so that such monitoring equipment can pickup any new events, such as a fresh release of contaminated substances from the reactors of a greater magnitude than has been the case since the earlier days of the disaster.

Certainly if someone who did not know this looked at this set of numbers, they could get a misleading idea of how low the radiation was near the boundary of the plant. But there is lots of other data covering far wider areas which give a much fuller picture, and I have no idea if anyone has actually been trying to use these low numbers to paint a misleading picture. Its not the most obvious place to start a reassuring propaganda campaign really, since there is still a rather large evacuation area and many people are concerned enough about radiation where they are living now, a long way away, let alone right next to the plant.

Having said that, TEPCO and the government and other agencies are clearly going to want to report good news rather than bad, an play down certain aspects. Many of my complaints involve issues related to this, but the nature of their distortions and omissions seldom tend to match the dramatic accusations of lying that some people have become rather obsessed with (see earlier discussion about reactor 4 leaning etc). I remain saddened at the lack of quality information on both sides.

Of more concern to public health is the various ways by which the contamination further afield may be played down, including for example the fact that contamination tends to end up collecting in hotspots over time, such as guttering. At least some of the more fanciful optimism as regards decontaminating of various places has become somewhat more sober as time has gone on, but I would not describe the present situation as satisfactory. And all of this concern, whether legitimate or not, also carries its own health toll, the effects of a disaster & contamination like this has a heavy psychological burden, which ultimately could be worse for the nationa s a whole than the physical health consequences directly related to the radioactive substances themselves.
 
They removed one of the unused fuel rod bundles from the reactor 4 fuel pool today. TV stations sent their helicopters to film it, though many of the clips I've seen didnt actually show the fuel bundle, just activities before and after it was raised. But the following one does show it. Its no secret how long these bundles are, but I think the size of it may still surprise some people:



This is not the method they plan to use to remove all of the spent fuel bundles from the pool, since this one was just a a bit of a fudge using standard cranes and stuff, and spent fuel bundles cant be handled this way since they need to be shielded.
 
A variety of things have happened since I last bothered to post on this thread, few of which were particularly noteworthy. They had a look inside containment of reactor 1 and took various measurements, and also took readings in the basements where the suppression chambers are located in reactors 1 & 2. As usual, results ruled a few possibilities out but didnt come close to giving a much fuller picture of the meltdown details.

They finished tidying up the top of reactor 4 building. Work continues to clear the debris from top of reactor 3 building, but work there is much slower as its a mess and radiation levels remain too high for humans to directly work in that area. They had a bit of an accident when removing some debris near the edge of the fuel pool, a chunk of it fell into the pool. They sent a balloon with cameras to look at the upper levels of reactor 1 under the collapsed roof. A couple of final reports into the accident got translated into english and although I found various details quite interesting, I cant think of too much thats of general interest and worth going into right now, since I already ranted about a lot of the mistakes and details in the past.

There are a couple of things relating to workers that I would like to talk about, but I'll put it in another post shortly.
 
There is talk of long-term problems with having enough workers to do everything required on site in an appropriate timeframe. This seems to be for several reasons including bad pay.

And its not bloody surprising when considering shit like this:

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201211220056

Of the many thousands of workers who have risked radiation exposure at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, only a paltry 3.7 percent are eligible for free cancer screenings provided by the government and Tokyo Electric Power Co.​
The percentage represents 904 people among 24,118 who have worked at the facility since the onset of the disaster in March 2011 to September this year.​
The low rate is because the government and plant operator TEPCO limited the scope of free screenings to those who were exposed to radiation of more than 50 millisieverts between March 11, 2011, and mid-December 2011, when the central government announced that reactor meltdowns triggered by the magnitude-9.0 earthquake and tsunami were under control.​
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​
Meanwhile they released a second batch of video recordings of the teleconferencing between the site, TEPCO HQ and some other locations. Obviously its in Japanese so I have to rely on journalists to provide information. Check this out in relation to workers:​
​
oh I cannot get the link working right now, site error, will have to post it another time. But in a nutshell it was the site manager getting upset with HQ some days after the disaster for failing to get new staff in to help with the work, complaining about how much radiation some had been exposed to and how long they had been working day & night.​
 
If anyone remembers being rather underwhelmed by the helicopter water drop, by that stage the plant manager & others at the site werent eactly impressed either, judging by this translation of part of the teleconference:

http://ex-skf.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/tepcos-teleconference-video-from-march.html

[On March 16, 2011, Plant Manager Yoshida sternly speaks to a manager in TEPCO HQ. When the HQ manager suggests Yoshida should plan for emergency, Yoshida gets angry, and stops using the polite form of Japanese and breaks into a rather rude form, which I cannot fully render into English but tried my best.]​

Fukushima I Plant Manager Masao Yoshida: "How are they going to inject water? I would like you to instruct us a bit more clearly. Any instruction will do, like a procedure manual."​

Manager at TEPCO HQ: "It is important to establish a procedure, but I think it is also necessary to prepare for emergency and quick retreat."​

Yoshida: "Yes, but I want the HQ to create a procedure manual. Don't you have it? The manual? You thought simply pouring water would do it, is that it? We'll all be watching, around [the reactor]. And you know what, if it explodes, we'll all die, you understand? We'll do it, I understand it has to be done right now. So get serious, and come up with the procedure, please!"​
Click to expand...

(March 17, 2011 at 9:48AM, the first helicopter arrived, and the dumping of water on Reactor 3 was shown on TV.) [It's about 33 minutes into the video.]​

A worker at Fukushima I Nuke Plant: "This is it? Where's the water?"​

Another worker: "Agh. (Water) didn't reach Reactor 3. What is this?"​

The first worker: "Oh well.. It is just a spray."​
Click to expand...
 
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