BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 10 Apr 11 - 01:18 PM

Add to gnu posts- estimates of stabilization and decommissioning of Fukushima range up to 30 years. Hitachi claims it can do it in ten, but others don't think so.
As noted by gnu, getting through debris and making new connections can't be done overnight.

The Wikipedia write-ups on the Japanese reactors, esp. Fukushima, are informative and up-to-date relative to most summaries I have found. Japan Times has had a number of good articles.

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 10 Apr 11 - 01:59 PM

Interesting and disturbing article in the New York Times today.
Japan has a two-tier labor system.
Employees of major companies are well-paid, are almost guaranteed long term employment, and mostly are highly educated, many specialists. They make up only about 20 per cent of the labor used by companies such as TEPCO.
The other 80 percent or workers are hired on contract, no job security, and none of the protection and perks of the top 20 percent.

"Day Laborers Braved Radiation for a Temporary Job"

"........thousands of untrained, itinerant, temporary laborers who handle the bulk of the dangerous work at nuclear power plants here (Japan) and in other countries, lured by the higher wages offered for working with radiation. Collectively, these contractors were exposed to levels of radiation about 16 times as high as the levels faced by Tokyo Electric Power Co. employees last year, according to Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, which regulates the industry. These workers remain vital to efforts to contain the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plants."
"They are emblematic of Japan's two-tiered work force, with an elite class of highly paid employees at top companies and a subclass of laborers who work for less pay, have less job security and receive fewer benefits. Such labor practices have both endangered the health of these workers and undermined safety at Japan's 55 nuclear reactor, critics charge."
"Of roughly 83,000 workers at Japan's 18 commercial nuclear power plants, 88 percent were contract workers in the year that ended in March, 2010, the nuclear agency said. At the Fukushima Daiichi plant, 89 percent of the 10,303 workers during that period were contractors."
Interviews paint a bleak picture of workers battling heat cleaning off radiation from reactor drywells and spent-fuel pools using mops and rags, clearing the way for TEPCO employees and inspectors, and filling drums with contaminated waste.
Wages fluctuate. One was paid $350 for two hours work at Fukushima and others speak of wages up to $1000/day. TEPCO refuses to discuss the contract workers and how many have been exposed to radiation.

There are attempts to form unions. The company attitudes are reinforced by those of the average Japanese, where a seldom-discussed class system exists. Moreover, foreigners such as the Koreans and southeast Asians are subjected to discrimination.

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 10 Apr 11 - 02:03 PM

Byline on labor article is Hiroko Tabuchi, published April 9, 2011.

It is doubtful that the article would be accepted by major media in Japan.

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Charley Noble
Date: 10 Apr 11 - 09:23 PM

Q-

Thanks for focusing on another dimension of living with nuclear power in the real world.

Japan is not unique in its nuclear transient labor policy. Our nuclear plants in the States have been doing the same kind of thing for years. When they are in their re-fueling cycle they also hire 100's of temp workers to do the dirty work, cycling them in and out when they exceed their annual dosage of radiation but most likely not checking to see what those same workers have been exposed to in their previous cycles at other plants.

It's not right and some day in the future the damage will be readily assessed.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 11 Apr 11 - 06:44 AM

First news after this the new shock that hit Fukushima prefecture earlier today (7.1. or 7.7 magnitude depending on the source) is that power to reactors 1,2 and 3 at Fukushima 1 is down. Firetrucks will be deployed later to supply water to cool the reactors.

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 11 Apr 11 - 06:57 AM

Òther news outlets are now quoting TEPCO saying there are 'no irregularities' at Fukishima 1 following the latest quake.

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Charley Noble
Date: 11 Apr 11 - 07:47 AM

It's still too early to assess the impact but I agree that the initial reports are positive stating that power was only disrupted for about an hour.

Japan certainly deserves a reprieve from further earthquakes.

My niece was planning to revisit friends in Japan this month and now she is seriously pondering what to do. I've been urging her to reschedule her flight for next year.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Apr 11 - 01:35 PM

MOX fuel in the United States-
One of the Fukushima reactors (No. 3) used MOX fuel from the Areva plant in France. Areva is an international concern, headquartered in France, with some 50,000 employees worldwide.

In the U. S. it is combined with the Shaw Group, into Shaw Areva MOX Services.
In South Carolina, at the Savannah River site, it is building a plant to blend weapons-grade plutonium with uranium to form the fuel mixed oxide, or MOX. Costs of the plant so far are $5 billion, 2000 workers are at the site.
It has been described as a 'swords into plowshares' program and is supported by the Obama administration. The U. S. has 43 tons of surplus plutonium.

So far, the government hasn't found a customer [why has the French plant successfully sold MOX not only to Japan but other Asian countries for reactors?].
The Tennessee Valley Authority might use some of the fuel in its reactors.

The plant may be stopped; Edwin Lyman of Union of Concerned Scientists calls it a "plant to nowhere." That would leave the U. S. without a way to dispose of its surplus plutonium.

Hearings are scheduled. It is possible that the site could become just a dumping ground.
Health risks, plus the possible spread of nuclear weapons to new countries, are among the drawbacks cited by legislators and regulators.

New York Times, article "New Doubts about Turning Plutonium Into a Fuel," Jo Becker and William J. Broad, April 10, 2011.

Notes-
-Areva also is a leader in wind-power installations.

MOX may become an obsolete fuel, as new designs for reactors are already being put into production.

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Charley Noble
Date: 11 Apr 11 - 01:57 PM

Q-

Thanks for the update on turning Plutonium into nuclear fuel in the States.

Here's some interesting quotes from the Japanese with regard to the Fukushima-1 nuclear complex in the aftermath of Monday's 7.0 aftershock:

"Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for the nuclear regulatory body (in Japan), gave assurances that there are backup vehicle-mounted power sources and extra pumps to keep injecting water into the reactors even in the case external power source is lost.

But he admitted that no preparation has been made in the event the plant, already seriously damaged due to hydrogen explosions and other factors, was engulfed in giant tsunami waves again, and that it may be difficult to think of any efficient preventive measure."

Clearly the Japanese need to continue pondering what to do next with regard to further tsunamis, even if such an event is challenging to think about.

The same could be said for power plant officials and engineers with the two nuclear plants on the California coast.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: gnu
Date: 11 Apr 11 - 02:28 PM

I was an (uneducated) advocate of nuclear power as an engineering student in the 70s. I attended a lecture given by (I am straining my brain a bit remembering) Dr. Stanton Friedman and he went a tad too far on the safety precautions when he said that the shear cost of these plants ensured that they were designed to be safe.

When my turn in Q&A came, I referred to his safety statement and asked if he actually believed that was a good arguement. "Yes." and he talked briefly. Again, I found it silly. My follow-up was,"How much did the Ocean Ranger (an offshore oil rig) cost before it sank and killed all those Newfies?"

I was severely reprimanded after the lecture by the Dean of Graduate Studies in front of a number of my professor and peers. Not for my "rebuttal" but for my flippancy and my disrespect.

I called in to a radio talk show airing the good doctor the next day and made the same point but much more mannerly.

Too bad I really haven't learned to hold my tongue more even after many such instances. >;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Apr 11 - 02:30 PM

California- two plants
Diablo Canyon, on a bluff 85 feet above sea level, 26 years old.

San Onofre, 50 feet above sea level, with a 50 foot tsunami wall, 42 years old.
They seem safe from tsunami, but aging components may cause break-down.

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 11 Apr 11 - 03:46 PM

Lead, follow or get out of the way.

http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2011/04/11/1962797/japanese-perplexed-by-slow-quake.html

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Apr 11 - 03:48 PM

A tremor, magnitude 7.0., cut off power and halted pumping of water at Fukushima 1, 2 and 3 for about 50 minutes.

Residents of some municipalities outside the evacuation zone (20-km) in Fukushima Prefecture will be "instructed to leave" in about a month (parts of Minamisoma and other towns).
[One would assume that the people would have reached their radition limits by then].

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Charley Noble
Date: 11 Apr 11 - 03:54 PM

Q-

Where did you find the reference to the "50-foot" tsunami wall for the San Onofre nuclear plant? I've only found references to a 25-foot tsunami wall such as in this Los Angeles Times article:

"Operators of the concrete-domed San Onofre nuclear plant Monday were trying to reassure jittery Southern California residents that the nuclear disaster unfolding in Japan won't happen here.

The 84-acre generating station in the northern corner of San Diego County is built to withstand a magnitude 7.0 earthquake, said Gil Alexander, a spokesman for the generation station's operator, Southern California Edison. That is greater than the 6.5 shaker that scientists predicted could strike the plant before it was built 42 years ago, he said. But it's less than the 8.9 quake that hit Japan last week.

A 25-foot-high 'tsunami wall' of reinforced concete was also erected between the plant and the adjacent ocean, a height based on scientists' best estimates of the potential threat, he said. "

It would be more reassuring if there were such a wall.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Apr 11 - 08:17 PM

San Onofre- Charley, I mistakenly wrote 50 feet (height of the ground surface above sea level) instead of 25 feet. Sorry about that.

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Charley Noble
Date: 11 Apr 11 - 10:16 PM

Q-

Not to worry! I was the one who earlier posted that Vermont Yankee was the only boiling water Mark 1 reactor in the States and there are 23 nestled here and there. Feel better?

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Apr 11 - 01:27 AM

The nature or a tsumnami wave is to deep pouring in which means a height of a wall is virtually meaningless.

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 12 Apr 11 - 03:38 AM

Just skimming the morning papers:

Fukushima disaster has now been upgraded to a 7 on the INES scale of nuclear disasters. Chernobyl was the only previous 'incident' reaching that high. The move is criticised by some as 'excessive'.

There's a fire in a building near reactor 4

According to one source workers have been evacuated from the site after the latest aftershock.

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Charley Noble
Date: 12 Apr 11 - 07:25 AM

Peter-

Thanks for the update on the incident level; Level 7 is major disaster and continuing.

The fire evidently was in a small accessory building containing batteries and was put out in a very short time. No doubt the batteries were being overworked following the latest aftershock and overheated.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Charley Noble
Date: 12 Apr 11 - 08:03 AM

Here's a little more reportage on why the Japanese watchdog agency upgraded the status of the incident at Fukushima-1 to 7 (from Al Jazeera):

"Local news agency Kyodo said the government's Nuclear Safety Commission had estimated that at one stage the amount of radioactive material released from the reactors in northern Japan had reached 10,000 terabequerels per hour for several hours, which would classify the incident as a major accident according to the INES scale.

The International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES), published by the International Atomic Energy Agency, ranks nuclear incidents by severity from 1 to a maximum of 7.

Kyodo did not say when the big increase in radiation had happened but quoted the commission as saying the release had since fallen to under one terabecquerel per hour."

I believe the 10,000 terabequerels per hour readers happened at the end of the first week after the "hydrogen explosion" in Unit 3. Of course the readings are most likely crude estimates because the regular recording instruments were either damaged by explosions or off-line. The Union of Concerned Scientists has a discussion of the radiation releases that merits review.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Apr 11 - 10:19 AM

It was clealy a 7 ( widespread danger to life about 20 days ago and I mentioned it here.

All the lies and mitigating silences that can be commited in the begining of a catasrophe have all been done.

It is as bad as it can be, even if anoher 3 reactors melt down it will not be twice as bad.

They now "admit" to THREE Reactors melted down and containment has been lost but not isolated. FOur fuel ponds are in continueing constant exposed jeopardy of going critical in cycles.

The soonest that this situation is brought to the point of sealing it off and stopping all leakds is NEVER. They will claim that it can be cleaned up in 20 to 30 years but that is Bull SHit.

If a clean up crew consisting of 500 or more suicide volunteers work around the clock it will take a year or more for the site to be open to workers who will be within a survivable degree of radiation to continue work with our current technology of protective gear.

The fact that this accident is an ongoing and continuous source of radiological poison in a cummulative manner, this event is becoming HUNDREDS OF TIMES more serious than Chernobyl.

The contamination will continue for years. The health risks will continue to grow. How many people will die as a result is not even a meaningful question. How many generations of many lifeforms that will suffer mutations and infertility, is the question.

Immediate lethality is not the worst part of this spill. It is what is in store for the entire region FORTY YEARS from now.

Even in the USA once you will be able to look at time scales of 50 to 100 years, the Fukushima disaster will eventually kill hundreds of people in a slow an insideous way, increase infertility and childhood leukemia will rise 100%.

After over 300 atmospheric tests of nukes the childhood leukemia rate in the USA increased by 1000 %. The people who died during the cold war radiological tests of every concievable kind was far greater than the Viet Nam War. As nuclear physicists say, Fukushima is like juggling 7 balls of deadly radiation at once.

How long Fukushima continues to spew, will determine if it will be less or more harmful than all the above ground nuclear tests put together.

How long it goes on and how bad the outcome is the great unknown in this deadly equation, but I have plainly spoken of a few of the likelyhoods above. The lieklyhood that everything gets sealed up, cleaned up and trucked away this year is zero.

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 12 Apr 11 - 12:50 PM

An article in Japan Times today, "Disaster toll still incalculable," touches on the many problems connected to compensation and re-building following the earthquake an tsunami. A few paraphrased problems:

TEPCO direct liabilities are estimated at $23 billion dollars. Their stock has lost 75% of its value. Takeover or extensive help from the government is necessary to keep the company afloat.

Many problems are associated with compensation. If one has property and wishes to rebuild, he has to deal with property washed onto his land. The owner of a house washed onto the property also will be dealing with insurers and until that claim is settled, the landholder is "on hold." Similar claims involve the cars and other property now on the landholder's property.

Farmers in the area claim that if they had been informed of where the airborne radioactive contamination was likely to spread, they could have covered and saved their crops. Many in the area raise special crops, some for export to EU and other areas, and have suffered heavily.

Recriminations cover all aspects of the disaster.
Inoue, Ground Self-Defense Force Chemical School, blames the government and TEPCO for not opening valves early on March 12 to release radiation-polluted gas so that the rising pressure in the No. 1 reactor could be released, preventing the hydrogen explosion,

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 12 Apr 11 - 01:12 PM

Oh shit, Donuel... :0(

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Apr 11 - 01:41 PM

"There is no reason to be optimistic."   Japanese Government.

After my post below I have been hearing some of the same sentiments and observations on CNN.

I would add that within 10 months the amount of radiation that Chernobyl has dispersed globally will be exceeded by FUkushima.
In ten years it will be like 10 Chernobyl explosions. In 20 years 20 Chernobyl's m and that is on the low side.

The high side could be over a factor of 10 higher if all the pools catch fire and more reactors explode. Compared to that maybe you could be optimisitc. The difference islike being a paraplegic or having all your limbs amputated. A paraplegic technically can be more optimistic.

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: gnu
Date: 12 Apr 11 - 01:43 PM

"... blames the government..."

?

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 12 Apr 11 - 01:47 PM

Could someone explain to me why that forsaken, incompetent company is allowed to function as the government of Japan? Who do they own? Who is being blackmailed? Bribed? Threatened? Why is it even being considered that they be allowed to run nuclear power in the future? Clean energy, perhaps.

And they don't even have compatability betweent the wiring of east and west Japan apparently. How smart is that? THere are historical reasons but this is part of the rolling blackout problems..they just can't shift energy around.

THis is not a problem limited to Japan's people, air, waters. It is international and they lie with impunity and create huge problems with countries that are historically angry with them to start with. Why does Edano et al keep encouraging them to be more forthcoming etc. What do they know that others could not step in and do better? Secrets? Somebody please spell this out. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Stringsinger
Date: 12 Apr 11 - 04:29 PM

The world is still suffering the bad effects of Chernobyl and now we have Fukushima to add to the nuclear calamity. Does anyone really think that what happened in Japan won't affect the elements in our atmosphere as did when Chernobyl blew?

What happens if Diablo Canyon or San Onofre blow in an earthquake (in earthquake country)?

How many of all the nuclear plants are in the U.S. that we can say are actually safe?

Look at the great track record American energy industry has in the Gulf Coast?
Are there any safeguards there that should make Americans feel safe?

What happened to all the supposed interest in alternative energy sources by the Obama administration or government agencies?

We can fund NASA, the military industrial complex, and three wars but we can't have a decent research and development program for alternative energy?

Priorities are screwed.

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 12 Apr 11 - 05:11 PM

I am no Scientist, yet I know, with every inch of my Soul that this form of power should NEVER have been allowed to be used anywhere on our beautiful planet.

If this does not wake us up, then we do not deserve to live on Mother Earth any longer.

ALL nuclear power stations should be shut down, around the globe, no matter how hard that will be on us all. We do not have the right to inflict this kind of damage on a world which is shared by so many other species. We are merely ONE of them. We have let all the other species down, as well as ourselves.

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Charley Noble
Date: 12 Apr 11 - 08:32 PM

I'm also convinced that this disaster will be graded much more major than Japanese authorities have already admitted. But probably less overall than Chernobyl unless something else happens.

The impact will be different, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists analysis of Chernobyl. In that disaster there was enough force in the initial explosion to send the plume of radiation high up in the air and the immediate area of the plant actually received less radiation fallout than areas further downwind. In the Fukushima-1 disaster I would expect a different distribution of fallout, greatest nearest the plant and grading to less toward the edge of the evacuation zone. Of course there is the additional "spill" into the bay which has its own impact on the fisheries, and no one has really predicted what that will be. And there's thousands of tons of heavily radiated water still festering in the pools beneath reactor units 1-4 that they have to pump somewhere so they can further stabilize the reactors and spent fuel pools.

I just was reviewing the information on Fukushima-1 posted to Wikipedia and hadn't seen this statement before:

"On April 3, two bodies were discovered in the basement turbine room after the workers likely fled there during the tsunami."

Sad.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 13 Apr 11 - 02:55 AM

There has been absolutely no mention, whatsoever, of Fukushima on BBC Breakfast News. It's like it hasn't happened. I find that so disturbing.

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Charley Noble
Date: 13 Apr 11 - 07:57 AM

There was some clarification this morning in my newspaper about "Level 7" in Japan. Evidently the Japanese nuclear regulators concluded that the Fukushima-1 nuclear complex had already exceeded the radiation level for the criteria of 7 by a factor of ten, but it had only released about 10 % (so far) of what was released in the Chernobyl level 7 disaster.

There is no higher level than 7.

That's the good news.

In addition that mandatory evacuation zone around this continuing nuclear disaster has again been expanded as additional radiation "hot spots" have been identified outside the 15 km zone; the new zone evidently has a radius of 20 km.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Charley Noble
Date: 13 Apr 11 - 09:36 AM

Here's what the Nuclear Information Resource Service (NIRS) has to say about Level 7:

"UPDATE, 12:30 pm, Tuesday, April 12, 2011. As predicted, the Japanese government has officially upgraded the status of the Fukushima accident to Level 7. In doing so, however, the government appears to be downplaying the actual radiation releases, with several media reports this morning quoting government officials as saying releases have been about 10% of those from Chernobyl.

However, as we reported here on March 23, the Austrian weather service, which has been monitoring radiation across the world and advising the International Atomic Energy Agency, said that releases of Cesium-137 at that time were already 20-60% those of Chernobyl and Iodine-131 releases were at 20%. Note: this updated release puts Cesium-137 releases at 50% those of Chernobyl.

Greenpeace, which issued a statement March 25 saying Fukushima was already a Level 7 accident at that time, referred both to the Austrian study and a study by French nuclear officials. We repost the Greenpeace statement, which includes links to both studies.

The world's media also appear to be missing another important story: the "evacuation" of five more villages to the northwest, that we reported yesterday, is not really an "evacuation." It is a permanent relocation. If people were being evacuated to avoid a potentially immediately threatening radiation dose, the evacuation would not take weeks or even a month; it would happen in hours. Rather, the Japanese government has acknowledged that radiation levels in those villages, although outside the established exclusion zone, are too high to allow long-term habitation. Thus, people will leave from those villages—and will not return."

It's now unclear to me if the Japan Nuclear Safety Commission is ordering a uniform 20 km exclusion zone or just expanding one sector further to the northeast to include newly confirmed "radiation hot spots."

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Newport Boy
Date: 13 Apr 11 - 09:43 AM

There's a good in-depth article in
today's Guardian

Phil

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Charley Noble
Date: 13 Apr 11 - 11:41 AM

Phil-

That's certainly one of the better updates that I've seen.

Here's a quote from this report about radiation conditions for the emergency workers, noting the extreme conditions in Unit 3:

"To cope, the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric, has downgraded safety baselines both for the workers and the surrounding environment.

With the approval of the Japanese government, it has increased the permissible radiation exposure level for the Fukushima workers from 50 millisieverts a year to 250. This raises the risk of cancer by about 1.25 percentage points above the population average.

Yet even working in short shifts at this increased level, the radioactivity is so high in some areas, such as the No 3 reactor, that plant managers say humans may never enter again.(emphasis added)"

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Jack Campin
Date: 13 Apr 11 - 12:51 PM

That is the scenario I find scariest.

If they can't get human operators near it, how do they maintain any sort of control? Robots and remotely controlled equipment aren't up to tasks that complicated.

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 13 Apr 11 - 02:25 PM

Some current reports from Japan Times today:
"Radiation Surges Above 4's Fuel Pool," Kanako Takahara, staff writer.
The nuclear safety agency says the rise indicates "the fuel rods have been further damaged and emitting radioactive substances."
TEPCO unsure "whether surge in radiation caused be spent fuel rods or radioactive material leaking from the reactor's pressure vessel."
A robot took a water sample to analyze the radioactive materials. Fresh water was added onto the rods today, water level unknown.

TEPCO plans to move spent fuel rods out of storage pools at reactors 1 through 4 and move them to a "safe location", but when and how not yet decided (pull by crane or build a special structure?). The "tasks are tough because the site is so radioactive and cluttered with debris from last month's hydrogen explosions.

Getting the radiosctive water out of the flooded turbine room into a storage area will take 4-5 days.

NISA said the utility was "rushing to install seven steel sheets around a seawater intake for reactor 2 and silt fences near intakes for reactors 3 and 4 to hinder spread of thousands of tons of radioactive water it dumped into the ocean."
A seawater sample 15 km away from Minamisoma showed 23 times the permissible level of iodine-131.

In spite of these problems, "Prime Minister Naoto Kan said Tuesday that the situation is "improving step by step and that the release of radioactive particles is declining."

Other articles in the paper, so possibly more information to be posted later.

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 13 Apr 11 - 02:34 PM

Japan Times reviewed some of the Greenpeace findings. NISA dismissed last month's reports as "unreliable." Greenpeace said they have been very cooperative about data, but the prime minister's office "not giving any response."

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Charley Noble
Date: 13 Apr 11 - 02:53 PM

Q-

TEPCO unsure "whether surge in radiation caused be spent fuel rods or radioactive material leaking from the reactor's pressure vessel."

Should we inform TEPCO that all nuclear fuel was removed from the Unit 4 reactor vessel to its spent fuel pool before the earthquake?

God, these reports seem confused. Hopefully, it's the translation:

NISA said the utility was "rushing to install seven steel sheets around a seawater intake for reactor 2 and silt fences near intakes for reactors 3 and 4 to hinder spread of thousands of tons of radioactive water it dumped into the ocean."

Are they seriously worried about contaminated water from the bay being sucked into their reactors? Or are they trying to keep more reactor coolant water from being added to the bay?

I give up for the rest of the afternoon.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 13 Apr 11 - 03:36 PM

Japan Times publishes its online paper in English, so there should be no translation problems.

Were all rods removed from No. 4 before the quake? Dunno for sure. This discrepancy has shown up before. Some reports say merely that the reactor "was not operating"

The Nuclear Safety Agency (France) said the No. 4 reactor was the main concern shortly after the quake and tsunami, but the spent fuel rods were their prime worry.

TEPCO says in all, 60,000 tons of radioactive water must be removed from the reactors. April 13, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/174632.html

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Newport Boy
Date: 13 Apr 11 - 04:44 PM

If they can't get human operators near it, how do they maintain any sort of control? Robots and remotely controlled equipment aren't up to tasks that complicated.

Not necessarily, Jack. Our local nuclear station developed defects in the steel liner (inside the reactor). The operator developed robots which could enter through the fuel tubes and has been successfully repairing the defects for the past 15 years.

Phil

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 13 Apr 11 - 06:10 PM

Going back over reports on the No. 4 reactor and the spent fuel pool, I realized I had been seeing something that wasn't registering.

The sentence that woke me was this- CNIC* staff member Masako Sawai said, "....... one of those spent fuel-rod pools stores several times more nuclear fuel than that in a reactor core-....."
*CNIC- Citizens' Nuclear Information Center. [Based in Tokyo, "We work to create a nuclear free world". The link below is to their English language website. The quote is from Japan Times].

CNIC

The pools store not only spent fuel rods but fresh fuel rods; how many of each were in No. 4 pool, I haven't found out.

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 13 Apr 11 - 07:51 PM

about wind farms in Japan now

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2011/04/nuclear-woes-boost-japanese-wind-but-supply-remains-limited?cmpid=WNL-Wednesday-April13-2011

What is interesting is that they are purposely not using more than 5% of wind power. Seeing as I do not trust them to do anything necessarily honestly, but of course they could have true engineering reasons to do this...I wonder why they can't bypass the grid and go directly into certain areas...why do things have to be centralized? Why not have certain facilities or towns or something that gets this directly? I know about irregular loads etc., which might be what they are trying to avoid. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 13 Apr 11 - 09:29 PM

Solar power could handle much of the non-commercial energy demands of the Japanese.
Commercial demand requires much more power than can be generated by panels.

JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), however, aims, by 2030, to put into geostationary orbit a solar-power generator that will transmit one gigawatt of energy to Earth, equivalent to the output of a nuclear power plant. Scientific American, July, 2008, "Farming Solar Energy in Space." The article is online- http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=farming-solar-energy-in-space.
The receiving end would have to be isolated, and plans are to put it at sea.
This plan would require support from th government and industry, but it might be a substitute for nuclear power. It also requires some 30 years lead-in time.

Windpower demand for land in a crowded country seems too large to be feasible.

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 13 Apr 11 - 09:37 PM

A lot of land has been freed up recently...and there is offshore..but they say the seashore slopes steeply. there is also of course wave power..lots of waves hitting that island. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 13 Apr 11 - 09:57 PM

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/rooted/2011/04/14/probability-and-responsibility-at-fukushima/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+CrikeyBlogs+(Crikey+Blogs)&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher

Some interesting points.

I suspect they have or will turn to North Korea for labor..look guys..your people are starving...we have lots of money for you in exchange for people to man or woman these hoses...mg

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: gnu
Date: 14 Apr 11 - 08:27 AM

NHK...

Japanese nuclear scientists say if a cooling system can be put in place at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, stabilizing its nuclear fuel could take another 3 months.

The deputy head of the Atomic Energy Society of Japan, Takashi Sawada, released the projection by an informal group of 11 society members on Thursday.

He said data published by Tokyo Electric Power Company shows that parts of the fuel rods in reactors 1 and 3 have melted and settled at the bottom of the pressure vessels.

He said if the ongoing water injections continue, the current situation can be maintained.

He said Tepco's most important task is to remove all the contaminated water and rebuild a cooling water circulation system.

He said once these jobs are done, stabilizing the nuclear fuels could take 2 to 3 months, if not longer.

But he warned that the situation could deteriorate if another strong earthquake knocks out power to the plant and makes it impossible to keep the nuclear fuel cool for 2 or 3 days. That would destabilize temperatures and pressures inside the reactors, and the situation would become extremely unpredictable again.

Thursday, April 14, 2011 19:34 +0900 (JST)

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Charley Noble
Date: 14 Apr 11 - 08:32 AM

mg-

Maine is already experimenting with floating wind towers off-shore. There doesn't seem to be an engineering problem with this concept and it would seem to have less of an environmental impact than building a supporting platform based on the sea floor.

I'm not sure what happens to these floating wind towers when there is a major gale or tsunami, but I guarantee there will be no radiation release.

Q-

The recently removed nuclear fuel (highly radioactive) from the Unit 4 reactor would have been stored with older spent fuel (still considered high-level nuclear waste) in the pool adjacent to the reactor head. I'm not sure where they store new fuel rods but I don't believe they have to be cooled until they have begun to be used. After a period of 5 years or so the spent fuel can be safely transferred to the common spent fuel pool or dry cask storage where it's still considered high level nuclear waste for thousands of years.

Spent nuclear fuel does lose its radioactivity fairly rapidly but there is so much radioactive content that whatever remains makes the fuel rod essentially deadly forever. This is a confusing concept, made further confusing by referring to the used nuclear fuel rods as "spent fuel." Supporters of nuclear power often point out how rapidly the radioactivity of a freshly removed fuel rod decreases, with the implication that it would be relatively harmless in a short period of time. When they do this, they are deliberately trying to mislead the public.

"Strontium's dandy,
Why it's just like candy!
The roaches will inherit the earth!

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Charley Noble
Date: 14 Apr 11 - 11:15 AM

I've been reviewing the status of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant relicensing. This nuclear plant is the same vintage and design as the older reactor units at Fukushima-1 nuclear complex in Japan. Vermont Yankee's license is scheduled to expire in 2012 but the company operating the plant applied to the NRC for a 20-year extension (Politico 3/25/2011):

"Monday, the same day the Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced it would conduct a 90-day "snapshot" regulatory review of the U.S. nuclear reactor fleet, the agency finalized the relicensing of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant — which has the same design as the stricken Japanese plant — for another 20 years."

"Vermont Yankee is actually scheduled to close next year anyway, but the NRC's action leads to questions about the comprehensive nuclear review President Barack Obama called for."

"It is stunning that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would rubber stamp the use of this aging reactor for another two decades, and it's outrageous that it would do so just days after announcing a 90-day review in response to the crisis in Japan," said Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth.

"Aside from being one of the 23 U.S. nuclear plants sharing a design and containment system similar to the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan, Vermont Yankee has had its own series of problems including the collapse of a cooling tower and leaks of radioactive tritium."

Unlike most states Vermont has reserved the right for the final word on such license extensions and its State Senate has already voted the extension down by an overwhelming margin. The NRC claims that it's authority would pre-empt the State's on issues dealing with nuclear power but given what's been happening in Japan they may be politically check-mated.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: Charley Noble
Date: 14 Apr 11 - 03:46 PM

That's one of the reasons many people including myself don't trust "breeder" reactors. They're coolant is sodium and if there is any contact with water very bad things happen. The big accident I remember was in Detroit with Fermi-1 in 1966; read all about it in the book WE ALMOST LOST DETROIT.

The Japanese also had big problems with a sodium cooled reactor leak.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Japan Nuclear plant disaster, 2011
From: gnu
Date: 15 Apr 11 - 07:17 AM

NHK...

Japanese manufacturer Toshiba, which helped build the Fukushima Daiichi plant's now crippled nuclear reactors, says decommissioning them will take at least 10 years.

Toshiba has drafted a plan with 4 US companies in the nuclear power industry to decommission the plant, including the Number 2 and 3 reactors that it built.

The company's President Norio Sasaki said on Thursday that it has submitted the proposal to Tokyo Electric Power and the Industry Ministry. Prime Minister Naoto Kan had earlier asked the utility to come up with a plan to end the nuclear crisis.

The proposal is divided into 3 phases. The short-term plan, likely to take several months, involves cooling and stabilizing reactors and spent fuel pools, while preventing radioactive water from increasing.
Toshiba will then move toward the medium-term plan, involving the safe removal of nuclear fuel rods from the pools and pressure vessels, using special cranes to be set up near the reactor buildings. Toshiba says this work will take 5 years.

The final phase, dismantling the reactors and clearing the land, will take another 5 years. Toshiba says that radioactive substances released in the process must be removed during this phase.

Thursday, April 14, 2011 21:41 +0900 (JST)