One year after 9/11, the International Committee on Nuclear Technology (ILK), an investigative body set up by the German states of Bavaria, Hesse and Baden-Württemberg, reached a devastating conclusion. According to the classified ILK study, "severe to catastrophic releases of radioactive materials could be expected in the event of a crash against the reactor building" in all but three nuclear power plants.

And even for the three most sophisticated power plants that stood a chance of surviving the crash of a jumbo jet, the ILK experts speculated that a crash under unfavorable conditions, such as "a direct hit on the control room," could also lead to a major accident.

Containment vessel designed to withstand the unfathomable, but not the control room. carry on.

Oh yes, latest from NISA Here.

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

Heres links to all the old ones

Japan threads:

• A second week of Japanese disaster by ceebs on 03/20/2011


• Japan disasters thread - a week after by DoDo on 03/17/2011


• Policy fallout: nuclear shutdowns in Germany by DoDo on 03/17/2011


• Another Japan News Thread by afew on 03/16/2011


• Continuing Japanese Disaster Open Thread by ceebs on 03/16/2011


• Japan: New Open Thread by afew on 03/15/2011


• Continued Japanese Disaster Thread by ceebs on 03/14/2011
  


• The end of nukes? by Jerome a Paris 03/13/2011


• Japan disasters open thread by DoDo on 03/13/2011


• Japanese Earthquake Diary by ceebs on 03/11/2011

The recent devastating earthquake has prevented eight major Japanese automakers from producing a total of 356,600 vehicles amid substantially curtailed operations, according to figures released by the companies by Friday.

As many remain uncertain about when their plants will resume full-fledged operations due largely to parts shortages, the figure is likely to increase.

The impact of the March 11 9.0-magnitude quake could eventually be smaller as some manufacturers are expected to raise output once full-fledged operations resume.

Concerns about Reactor No. 3 have surfaced before. Japanese officials said nine days ago that the reactor vessel may have been damaged.

A senior nuclear executive who insisted on anonymity but has broad contacts in Japan said that there was a long vertical crack running down the side of the reactor vessel itself. The crack runs down below the water level in the reactor and has been leaking fluids and gases, he said.

The severity of the radiation burns to the injured workers are consistent with contamination by water that had been in contact with damaged fuel rods, the executive said.

"There is a definite, definite crack in the vessel -- it's up and down and it's large," he said. "The problem with cracks is they do not get smaller."

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon on Friday held a teleconference with senior members of U.N. agencies to respond to the ongoing crisis at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Participants of the conference, the first of its kind, included Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency and Tibor Toth, executive secretary of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization.

Also represented at the meeting were organizations involved in providing aid to the Japanese government, such as the U.N. Development Program, the World Health Organization and the World Meteorological Organization.

The participants discussed topics including extraordinary information-sharing measures, according to the United Nations.

http://www.zamg.ac.at/pict/aktuell/20110325_Reanalyse-I131-Period1.gif

http://www.zamg.ac.at/pict/aktuell/20110325_Reanalyse-I131-Period2.gif

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

Japan's Self-Defense Forces have released the latest aerial images of the disaster-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

The footage was shot from a Ground Self-Defense Force helicopter about mid-day Wednesday. Roughly one hour of video was edited into a 5-minute clip showing reactors No. 1 to No. 4.

Footage of the No. 3 reactor building shows its roof and the upper section of the building's southern wall blown away by a hydrogen blast.

Vapor can be seen wafting from gaps in the wreckage near a pool for spent nuclear fuel rods. Faint steam can be seen rising from twisted steel framework over what could be the upper part of the containment vessel.
The footage shows the No. 4 reactor building, which has been reduced to steel framework near the top, with a wall on the upper part of the building's southern side torn away.

Light apparently reflected by water can be seen from openings in the roof's frame. An inside view from the southern side shows a green object that is most likely a fallen crane.

Some Links to Sites with Current Information on
the Status of Nuclear Powerplants in Japan

Not to put too fine a point on it, as an unfolding nightmare Fukushima already inhabits territory perilously close to those irradiated landscapes of the pulp fantasies of my childhood -- only you wouldn't know it.  As "not as bad as Chernobyl" slips into the fog, it might be better to describe the situation at Fukushima as "remarkably unlike Chernobyl" in rural Ukraine, where almost 25 years ago, a single uncontained nuclear reactor with a graphite core blew. 

We now contemplate the possibility of multiple reactors accompanied by multiple containment pools for what is euphemistically called "spent" fuel (when it isn't "spent" at all) -- at least 11,195 such rods, 1760 metric tons of them -- self-destructing in a highly industrialized country smaller than California with the third largest economy on the planet.  In a situation we've never faced before, except perhaps in fiction, to talk about "safety" and offer "reassurance" should ring oddly indeed.

H/T ARGeezer

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

Saying that at 280 degrees C the gaskets on the charging lid will have a good chance of giving way, temperature is more of a risk than pressure, These Gaskets are an extra safety feature that dont exist on the US version.

temperature on one of the pressure vessels reached 400 degrees which is to the right of the line where they had 100% gasket failure at all temperatures.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

(Reuters) - Highly radioactive water has been found at a second reactor at a crippled nuclear power station in Japan, the plant's operator said, as fears of contamination escalated two weeks after a huge earthquake and tsunami battered the complex.

Underscoring growing international concern about nuclear power raised by the accident in northeast Japan, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement it was time to reassess the international nuclear safety regime.

Earlier, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan, making his first public statement on the crisis in a week, said the situation at the Fukushima nuclear complex, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo, was "nowhere near" being resolved.

Since the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant began, triggered by the massive March 11 earthquake, 17 workers have suffered radiation of more than 100 millisieverts, the maximum level to which nuclear plant workers may be exposed per year.

They were among those engaged in critical work to lift the stricken six-reactor plant out of what has become for Japan an unprecedented nuclear disaster, amid high risks of exposure to radiation.

Tokyo Electric Power Co., the plant operator and the nation's biggest utility, says it is ''up to each individual to decide whether or not to continue'' working at the plant.

But an expert familiar with working conditions said that in the case of subcontractors, ''The reality is that they are not in a position to decline job offers that they may not like, because they know that would affect orders in the future.''

At Fukushima Daiichi, efforts to restore power and other facilities are underpinned by workers facing radiation exposure risks.

"The current situation at the Fukushima No. 1 plant is unpredictable and we are trying to prevent it from deteriorating," Kan told a news conference at the Prime Minister's Official Residence. "I believe we need to continue dealing with each problem with a strong sense of urgency."

...

"From now on, we need to begin preparing for a full-scale reconstruction . . . of the region, as well as people's lives," Kan said.

"We shall not burden individuals or each household with the damages of the disaster -- society and Japan as a whole will share the burden equally."

...

... "I think every country has their own way of thinking and is setting their own standards. We have been providing information with transparency to all nations and international organizations."

Most victims of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami were seniors who were unable to move with the agility needed to escape the twin disaster.

Of 2,853 victims in five prefectures, whose identities and ages have been confirmed as of Wednesday, 65.1 percent were 60 years old or older, according to Yomiuri Shimbun calculations.

The calculations, based on the number of casualties identified by Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima, Ibaraki and Chiba prefectural police headquarters, also show that 46.1 percent of the casualties were 70 years old or older.

Younger people evidently were much more likely to escape the tsunami that followed the powerful earthquake that devastated the coastal areas of the Tohoku and Kanto regions.

In Iwate Prefecture, 457 of 721 victims, or 63.3 percent of the total, were 60 years old or older while 44 percent were 70 or older.

Of 1,579 identified victims in Miyagi Prefecture, 63.1 percent were 60 years old or older and 44.9 percent were 70 or older.

Last year, people aged 60 in Iwate Prefecture accounted for 34.9 percent of the total prefectural population, while 20.8 percent were aged 70 or older.

This shows the ratios of the total number of identified elderly victims were almost double that of the prefecture's aged population.

On Thursday, three workers were exposed to water containing radioactive materials 10,000 times the normal level at the turbine building connected to the No. 3 reactor building. On Friday, a pool of water with similarly highly concentrated radioactive materials was found in the No. 1 reactor's turbine building, causing some restoration work to be suspended.

Similar pools of water were also found in the turbine buildings of the No. 2 and No. 4 reactors, measuring up to 1 meter and 80 centimeters deep, respectively. Those near the No. 1 and No. 3 reactors were up to 40 cm and 1.5 meters deep.

While it will try to analyze the levels of radioactivity of the pools of water found in the No. 2 and No. 4 reactors, TEPCO will remove such water in all of four reactor units to reduce the risk of more workers being exposed to radioactive substances, it said. The risk hinders their efforts to restore the plant's crippled cooling functions, which are crucial to overcoming the crisis, it added.

Tokyo Electric Power Company has been forced to change its strategy at the quake-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant due to high radiation levels at the site. The plant's nuclear reactors 1 through 4 have all lost their cooling capabilities as both external and backup power supplies failed after the quake and tsunami.

TEPCO has been working to restore the external power supply while trying to cool the reactors and spent fuel storage pools by using pump trucks to secure water levels. However, 3 workers were exposed to highly radioactive water in the basement of the turbine building of the No.3 reactor on Thursday. The radiation level there was 200 millisieverts per hour at one time.

This led to a change in plans. In an effort to continually cool the reactors, TEPCO has started to pump fresh water instead of seawater into the No. 1 and No. 3 reactors on Friday. With this strategy in mind, the company first intended to use the reactors' water pumps. But they were forced to use pump trucks instead from a distance, after high radiation levels were detected near the reactors' pumps.

The company plans to switch on lights in the No.2 reactor's control room on Saturday through an external power supply. Meanwhile, they will also continue to use trucks to pump fresh water into the reactor.

How about a little 8 magnitude aftershock, with a subsequent tsunami spreading the reactor mess all over the countryside?

I hear that the US Corps of Engineers is good at building sea walls, maybe they should deploy to Japan.

Radioactive water has been found in buildings of three of the six reactors at the power complex 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo. On Thursday, three workers sustained burns at reactor No. 3 after being exposed to radiation levels 10,000 times higher than usually found in a reactor.

"Bailing out accumulated water from the turbine housing units before radiation levels rise further is becoming very important," said Japan Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency senior official Hidehiko Nishiyama.

....

With elevated radiation levels around the plant triggering fears across the nation, storage of the contaminated water has to be handled carefully.

"We are working out ways of safely bailing out the water so that it does not get out into the environment, and we are making preparations," Nishiyama said.

Levels of radioactive materials are skyrocketing in the sea near the crisis-hit nuclear power station in Fukushima Prefecture, the government's nuclear safety agency said Saturday, while the plant's operator has started injecting fresh water into the No. 2 reactor core to enhance cooling efficiency.

According to the government's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, radioactive iodine-131 at a concentration 1,250.8 times the legal limit was detected Friday morning in a seawater sample taken around 330 meters south of the plant, near the drain outlets of its troubled four reactors.

The level rose to its highest so far in the survey begun this week, after staying around levels 100 times over the legal limit. It is highly likely that radioactive water in the plant has disembogued into the sea, Tokyo Electric Power Co said.

The result could fan concerns over fishery products in northeastern Japan as highly radioactive water has been found leaking near all four troubled reactor units at the plant.

Radioactive materials ''will significantly dilute'' by the time they are consumed by marine species, the agency said, adding, it will not have a significant impact on fishery products as fishing is not conducted in the area within 20 kilometers of the plant as the government has issued a directive for residents in the area to evacuate.

At the entrance of a sports gymnasium in Fukushima city earlier this month, a doctor wearing a white hat, mask and gloves was seen holding a radiation monitor over the hands of a visiting resident.

The doctor then held it over the person's forehead, abdomen and back. The resident was then asked to raise their heels to check the back of the shoes at the end of the procedure to get a reading on the monitor.

After the series of problems at one of the country's largest nuclear power plant, these radiation screenings have been conducted at the entrance of shelters in Fukushima Prefecture since March 13, two days after the devastating quake and tsunami crippled the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. They are intended to check if a resident has been exposed to radiation.

''Certificates'' are then issued by the doctors to those who have been declared free of any abnormality.

But these certificates have come to be an unexpected function in the community that has become nervous about anything radioactive. Some shelters have started demanding that certificates be presented before any residents evacuating from the nuclear disaster are admitted.

(Reuters) - German shipping companies are avoiding Tokyo Bay area ports due to radiation fears and Japan could face severe supply chain bottlenecks as vessels get diverted, ship industry officials said on Thursday.

Any logistical setbacks could mean major delays and seaborne congestion at Japan's terminals including Tokyo, hindering recovery efforts in the wake of the March 11 earthquake.

"The last thing Japan needs right now is for people to abandon them," said Tim Wickmann, chief executive of MCC Transport a unit of Danish oil and shipping group A.P. Moller-Maersk (MAERSKb.CO).

Among those that have stopped going to Tokyo for the time being are Hapag-Lloyd HPLG.UL -- the world's fifth-biggest container shipper part-owned by tour operator TUI AG (TUIGn.DE) -- and container ship operator Claus-Peter Offen.

Tangently related to MSM brown outs. Maybe it's just me but... these sensors took a very interesting time to 'malfunction'.

Glitches hamper radiation warning system in California

The federal government's radiation alert network in California is not fully functional, leaving the stretch of coast between Los Angeles and San Francisco without the crucial real-time warning system in the event of a nuclear emergency.

Six of the Environmental Protection Agency's 12 California sensors -- including the three closest to the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant near San Luis Obispo -- are sending data with "anomalies" to the agency's laboratory in Montgomery, Ala., said Mike Bandrowski, manager of the EPA's radiation program.

Nearly two hours of footage was taken from the air immediately after the magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck Japan on March 11.

Travelling from the Miyagi prefecture to the Fukushima nuclear plant, the footage, released by the Japanese government, shows the extent of the damage inflicted on the nuclear plant from the earthquake.

Fires in buildings and structural damage to the plant is evident. And whilst in the air the camera crew also capture the first terrifying tsunami waves heading to Japan.

Conservatives really do live in the land of wishful thinking. Yes, of course you can give away tax dollars that are supposed to be used for enforcement and use them for tax breaks! Of course you can cut funding for air traffic controllers without putting air travelers at risk, of course you can stop inspecting pharmaceutical factories and food processing plants, and expect them to just tell you if there's a problem. After all, who would risk their company just to make a buck?

All of the above, but especially the nuclear power industry:

More than a quarter of U.S. nuclear plant operators have failed to properly tell regulators about equipment defects that could imperil reactor safety, according to a report by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's inspector general.

Operators of U.S. nuclear power plants are supposed to tell the NRC when pieces of equipment "contain defects that could create a substantial safety hazard," regulations say.

Although the report doesn't assert that any imminent danger resulted from the lapses, many experts said the lack of communication could make it harder for other nuclear reactor operators to learn about flaws in their own equipment, because many similar parts are used in other reactors.

Top officers of Japan's Self-Defense Forces and the US Pacific Fleet have agreed to share information on the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant and cooperate in solving the problem.

The head of the SDF Joint Staff Office, General Ryoichi Oriki, and Admiral Patrick Walsh met at the Defense Ministry in Tokyo on Saturday afternoon.

Walsh commands all the US units working for relief operations in the quake-hit area in northeastern Japan.

He told reporters after the meeting that some of his senior staff in charge of communication with SDF officers have specific knowledge and technical skills relating to nuclear power.

Japanese electric power companies that operate nuclear power plants are facing difficulty in either restarting nuclear reactors in their checkups or transporting nuclear fuel to the power plants.

Municipal governments that host nuclear power plants are urging plant operators to freeze expansion projects and to review safety measures.

Hokuriku Electric Power Company has indicated that the firm has difficulty in rebooting two reactors at its Shika plant in Ishikawa Prefecture without the understanding of the prefectural government and residents. The reactors were taken out of operation for either mechanical trouble or regular inspection.

In western Japan, Kansai Electric Power Company has decided to postpone transporting nuclear fuel to one reactor at its Takahama plant in Fukui Prefecture from France.

The company cites difficulty in ensuring the fuel's safe delivery because the government is busy handling the aftermath of the March 11th disasters and can't provide the necessary safeguards for transport.

Municipalities in Fukushima Prefecture are relocating residents and administrative functions to remote areas. Many of them are located within the evacuation zone around the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

On March 19th, Futaba Town moved its functions and the entire community to Saitama City in Saitama Prefecture.

Two other municipalities have also decided on collective relocation of administration and residents. Okuma Town plans to move to Aizu-Wakamatsu City in Fukushima Prefecture, and Naraha Town, to Aizu-Misato Town in the same prefecture.

A researcher said Saturday he had warned two years ago about the possible risk of a massive tsunami hitting a nuclear power plant in Japan, but Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant crippled by the March 11 earthquake and ensuing tsunami, had brushed off the warning.

According to the researcher, Yukinobu Okamura, and the records of a government council where he made the warning, TEPCO asserted that there was flexibility in the quake resistance design of its plants and expressed reluctance to raise the assumption of possible quake damage citing a lack of sufficient information.

''There should be ample flexibility in the safety of a nuclear power plant,'' said Okamura, head of the Active Fault and Earthquake Research Center at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology. ''It is odd to have an attitude of not taking into consideration indeterminate aspects.''

Okamura had warned in 2009 of massive tsunami based on his study since around 2004 of the traces of a major tsunami believed to have swept away about a thousand people in the year 869 after a magnitude 8.3 quake off northeastern Japan.

He had found in his research that tsunami from the ancient quake had hit a wide range of the coastal regions of northeastern Japan, at least as far north as Ishinomaki in Miyagi Prefecture and as far south as the town of Namie in Fukushima Prefecture -- close to the Fukushima Daiichi plant -- penetrating as much as 3 to 4 kilometers inland.

Japan's Meteorological Agency says the recent massive earthquake off the Pacific coast of Northeastern Japan occurred due to a fault line shift of up to 30 meters. The agency said at a news conference on Friday that it discovered this while analyzing how the quake occurred based on seismometer data it obtained in Japan and abroad.

....

All this shows that the 450-kilometer fault line shifted a distance of up to 30 meters in just 3 minutes. This caused a massive quake with a magnitude of 9.0 and a tsunami 10 meters high which hit the Pacific coast of Japan.

The meteorological agency says it will continue its analysis of huge earthquakes and aftershocks to help improve disaster response.

Workers at the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant are now pumping fresh water instead of seawater into the No. 2 reactor. The measure was taken to prevent salt from building up inside the reactor and affecting its cooling capability. Seawater was used to cool reactors and spent fuel storage pools at the plant as an emergency measure following the tsunami.

A similar measure was taken at the No. 1 and No. 3 reactors on Friday. The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency says it hopes to complete the switchover at spent fuel storage pools of the No. 2 and No. 4 reactors on Sunday.

The agency says fresh water has helped to stabilize the condition of the No. 1 reactor and accordingly wants to accelerate the process. It adds that further use of seawater could hamper temperature and pressure control.

Saturday,  +0900 (JST)


"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

Police on Saturday arrested a 48-year-old Chinese man, who turned himself in to Nagasaki prefectural police seeking deportation due to his fears about the nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi power station, for illegally staying in Japan, police officials said.

Lin Jian Ming is suspected of remaining in Japan beyond the allowed period of 90 days after arriving on June 8, 2000, the officials said.

The man came to the Nagasaki prefectural police headquarters on Saturday afternoon, telling them that he lived in Funabashi, Chiba Prefecture, but had fled to Nagasaki to escape the nuclear power plant crisis and wanted to return to China, the officials said.

Lin has told police he arrived in Nagasaki a week ago.

(Reuters) - Ford Motor Co (F.N) will idle its auto plant in Genk, Belgium, for five days starting April 4, to conserve parts following the earthquake and nuclear crisis in Japan that has disrupted supplies for numerous automakers.

The shutdown had been set for May but the automaker chose to idle the plant sooner "to ensure we have sufficient parts availability," Ford spokesman Todd Nissen said on Saturday.

"Given the current situation in Japan, we took this as a precautionary measure. To be clear, we haven't experienced any plant disruptions as a result of a parts shortage at this point," he said.

Taking your calculation a little farther.

A yield of 2.878% would amount to a related fission of 1.31 Kg of uranium 235

If fuel rods are enriched apprx 3% U235. Then 1.31 Kg U235 becomes apprx 43 Kg of fuel pellets (or apprx 100 lb)

Assume shore current is conservatively 2 mi/hr then the isotopic product of the fuel pellets passing the collection point would have to be replaced 10 times per hour.

This would mean that the fission products of half a ton of fuel pellets/hr (1000 lb/hr) are being swept past that collection point.

That translates into the product of 12 tons of fuel pellets/day flushing into the sea.

*Please excuse the rounding errors - I didn't use a conversion table

The following are the latest casualty figures related to the earthquake and tsunami that hit northeastern and eastern Japan on March 11, according to the National Police Agency as of 9 p.m. Saturday:

 Number of people killed 10,489 Number of people missing 16,621

The plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., was able to turn on the lights in the control room for the No. 2 reactor the same day, leaving only the No. 4 reactor at the six-reactor plant without lighting in its control room.

According to the government's nuclear safety agency, evidence of water having flowed through an ordinary drainage outlet has been found at the No. 2 reactor building, with a radiation level of about 15 millisieverts per hour detected. The outlet is believed to lead to the sea.

Japan's top government spokesman Yukio Edano said at a press conference Saturday that it was difficult to predict when the ongoing crisis at the plant -- triggered by the catastrophic March 11 earthquake and ensuing tsunami -- would end.

Asked about the prospects for the crisis, Edano described the current situation as ''preventing it from worsening,'' adding that ''an enormous amount of work'' is required before it will settle down.

Heat accumulation

The normal way to dispose of heat is to pump it away in circulating cooling water (see the massive flows of water either side of the seawall in the picture below). With the cooling pumps out of action due to loss of power, the only way to remove heat is by conduction through water. With the reactors shut down, the rate of heat production will now be much less than 1% of that produced by fission power, but the heat still needs to be removed. The following statement from this report is revealing:

   A similar operation is planned for later today at unit 4 and the surface temperatures of the buildings appear to be below 100ºC.

This suggests that the reactor buildings are essentially the heat sinks being used to absorb much of the heat being produced. For fuel rods cooled by water emersion at atmospheric pressure, the maximum temperature the coolant can reach is 100˚C (or it will boil) and since heat is always transferred from higher to lower temperatures, the maximum temperature the buildings can reach is 100˚C by conduction through water at atmospheric pressure. When they reach this temperature there is no where for the radiation heat produced to go and the source temperatures may continue to rise. I'm not sure what the exact outcome might be, but fuel rods catching fire or melting are two possible outcomes.

The following statement from this report gives further cause for concern:

   Tepco noted that the temperature of the containment vessel of unit 1 had built to some 400ºC, compared to a design value of only 138ºC. However, the strength of the component is such that it can withstand the stresses this imposes, said Tepco, and its structural integrity is expected to be maintained. "There is no substantial problem regarding the containment vessel's structural soundness under conditions of pressure 300 kPa and temperature 400ºC."

If the reactor steel pressure vessel and the concrete containment are still pressurised then it is possible to raise the temperature of water above 100˚C, but a temperature of 400˚C still signals a serious heat dissipation issue at Unit 1. If either the pressure vessel or containment system are at atmospheric pressure then it suggests that the reactor pressure vessel is ruptured and nuclear fuel is in contact with the concrete containment system.

It is quite clear that Tepco is aware of this problem hence the race to restore mains AC power to see if the pumping system works which will allow heat to be pumped away using the reactor's and cooling pond's water cooling systems. How much of this is going to work?

For unit #s 1, 2 & 3 the cores could be at or below 100C because the containment has failed and they are therefore unable to keep water in the liquid state above 100C, so reports of temperatures below 100C are, potentially, a mixed blessing. The only effective means of removing heat that remains is circulating cold water into the reactor vessel and building and that water either evaporating as steam, carrying away the latent heat of vaporization, or heated and now contaminated water being pumped to storage tanks or the ocean. Spraying fresh water on the building would help remove heat from the concrete, which is functioning as a heat sink, but at the cost of providing additional contaminated water to be dealt with.

In order to stabilize the the reactors without further polluting the ocean it would be necessary to have two barges on site at all times: one for fresh water; one for contaminated water. The fresh water barge could turn into a contaminated water barge when empty of fresh water. This would also provide a way of dealing with water that has been sprayed on spent fuel pools and leaked onto the rest of the facility and the water that needs to be pumped out of the reactor and turbine buildings.

Up-thread it was noted that some of the black smoke seen coming out of #s 1, 2 & 3 at various times may have been seals and gaskets that had been heated to decomposition. Add to that the stainless steel piping that has been seriously weakened by the presence of high temperature salt water and we have a very leaky system.  

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

Radioactivity in water at reactor 2 at the quake-damaged Fukushima nuclear plant has reached 10 million times the usual level, company officials say.

Workers trying to cool the reactor core to avoid a meltdown have been evacuated.

Earlier, Japan's nuclear agency said that levels of radioactive iodine in the sea near the plant had risen to 1,850 times the usual level.

The UN's nuclear agency has warned the crisis could go on for months.  

High radiation detected 30 km from Fukushima plant

Radiation levels 40 percent higher than the yearly limit for the general public has been detected just over 30 kilometers from the Fukushima Daiichi power plant.

The Science Ministry says a reading of 1.4 millisieverts was taken on Wednesday morning in Namie Town northwest of the plant.

Ow shit. That's an order of magnitude higher than previous values at the same town.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

LONDON -- The UK is starting to look like a safe haven for nuclear power. Britain's decision to set a floor price for electricity generated from fossil fuels is not an explicit endorsement of new reactors. But it may help tip the balance for companies contemplating investment in new capacity. It's not obvious that Japan's disaster has set back Britain's nuclear ambitions very far.

In the wake of the leak at the Fukushima plant, Western governments have been quick to placate public concerns about nuclear power. At the extreme end of the scale, Germany suspended operations at some ageing reactors. But the UK has been more measured, saying that while there will be lessons from Japan, there should be no rush to judgment.

The UK's chief nuclear inspector is due to report to the government on those possible lessons in May. But it's already clear that the UK is keeping a very open mind. The proposal to enforce a minimum price for carbon is designed to push up the cost of electricity from non-renewable sources, thereby encouraging the 110 billion pounds of investment in low-carbon electricity the government says is needed by 2020. While the floor benefits all forms of renewable energy, it makes a particular difference to near-term investment decisions in nuclear.  

Record 16-meter tsunami hit Minami-sanriku

Scientists say a record 16-meter tsunami hit a coastal town in Miyagi Prefecture on March 11th.

Researchers at the Port and Airport Research Institute released the finding after inspecting buildings in Minami-sanriku Town, which was devastated by the massive earthquake and tsunami.

They determined that tsunami as high as 12 to 14 meters hit hospitals and the town hall in the center of the town.

A 4-story public apartment building in the coastal area was almost completely inundated, suggesting that tsunami up to 16 meters reached the building.

The waves were about 4 times as high as those that hit the region in 1960 following a powerful earthquake in Chile.

The researchers estimate that tsunami with a maximum power of 40 tons per square meter destroyed concrete pillars and walls in the coastal area.

A chief researcher at the institute, Taro Arikawa, says that he believes tsunami directly hit the town's coastline, which is open to the fault that caused the quake.

Arikawa added that tsunami could have been amplified in the bay where the seabed becomes much shallower toward the coast.

He stressed the need to review measures to protect concrete buildings, which were thought to be highly resistant to tsunami.

Sunday, March 27, 2011 08:53 +0900 (JST)

Minuscule amounts of radioactive substances believed to have come from Japan's crippled nuclear power plant have been detected in Las Vegas but the readings pose no health risk, the Associated Press reported Saturday.

The report said extremely small amounts of iodine-131 and xenon-133, both of which are not usually found in Nevada, were detected at a monitoring station near the Atomic Testing Museum in the city following a series of radiation leaks at the Fukushima Daiichi plant.

Reactor 3 radioactives in water pools:

http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/11032503-e.html

Co60,Tc99,I131,Cs134,Cs136,Cs137,Ba140,La140,Ce144

Reactor 1:
http://www.nisa.meti.go.jp/english/files/en20110325-6.pdf

Cl38,As74,Y91,I131,Cs134,Cs136,Cs137,La140

Cl38 has a half life of 37 minutes, not a decay product. Maybe from neutron irradiation of salt ? Something is still fizzing in reactor 1. No Na isotopes are seen, perhaps immobilized in comparison to the chlorine.

It seems that all the reactors have pools of radioactive water around them. I have not seen an analysis yet of pools around reactors 2) and 4), it may be that the plumbing is leaking in those as well.

There are also these readings:

http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/11032605-e.html

I find it troubling that I-132, Ru-105, Te-129 are detected. These have very short half lives, and must have been recently created. Daini is seeing I-132 as well.

The situation at the quake- and tsunami-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear powerplant in Japan was brought under control days ago. It remains the case as this is written that there have been no measurable radiological health consequences among workers at the plant or anybody else, and all indications are that this will remain the case. And yet media outlets around the world continue with desperate, increasingly hysterical and unscrupulous attempts to frame the situation as a crisis.

Here's a roundup of the latest facts, accompanied by highlights of the most egregious misreporting

First up, three technicians working to restore electrical power in the plant's No 3 reactor building stood in some water while doing so. Their personal dosimetry equipment later showed that they had sustained radiation doses up to 170 millisievert. Under normal rules when dealing with nuclear powerplant incidents, workers at the site are permitted to sustain up to 250 millisievert before being withdrawn. If necessary, this can be extended to 500 millisievert according to World Health Organisation guidance.

None of this involves significant health hazards: actual radiation sickness is not normally seen until a dose of 1,000 millisievert and is not common until 2,000. Additional cancer risk is tiny: huge numbers of people must be subjected to such doses in order to see any measurable health consequences. In decades to come, future investigators will almost certainly be unable to attribute any cases of cancer to service at Fukushima.

On the other hand, 57.9 percent said they approve of the way the state has dealt with disaster victim support in northeastern and eastern Japan hit by the catastrophic earthquake and ensuing tsunami on March 11.

The nationwide telephone survey conducted Saturday and Sunday also found that the approval rate for Prime Minister Naoto Kan's Cabinet came to 28.3 percent, up 8.4 percentage points from the previous survey in mid-February.

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As for the government's response to the nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture which was severely damaged by the quake and tsunami, 19.6 percent said they do not approve of it at all and 38.6 percent said they do not approve of it very much.

(Reuters) - A U.S. nuclear plant in Alabama similar in design to the earthquake-hit Fukushima facility in Japan has multiple defenses to prevent and tackle the same kind of emergency, its operator said.

Safety features at the Browns Ferry plant in northern Alabama are so superior to those at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi plant that even in the event of massive flooding the chances of a crisis were negligible, officials from the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) told reporters.

"What we have here is defense in depth, multiple levels of redundancy, backup to the backup to the backup," TVA communications consultant Jim Nesbitt told journalists who toured the facility on Friday as he explained the plant's elaborate safety systems.

The emergency at the Japanese plant has escalated since March 11 when a tsunami, triggered by a massive earthquake, knocked out power.

Japan on Sunday faced an increasing challenge of removing highly radioactive water found inside buildings near some troubled nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, with the radiation level of the surface of the pool in the basement of the No. 2 reactor's turbine building found to be more than 1,000 millisieverts per hour.

Exposure to such an environment for four hours would raise the risk of dying in 30 days. Hidehiko Nishiyama, spokesman for the government's nuclear safety agency, said the figure is ''quite high'' but authorities must find a way to pump out the water without sending workers too close to push ahead with the restoration work.

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Adding to the woes is the increasing level of contamination in the sea near the plant, although Nishiyama reiterated there is no need for health concerns so far because fishing would not be conducted in the evacuation-designated area within 20 kilometers of the plant and radioactive materials ''will be significantly diluted'' by the time they are consumed by marine species and then by people.

Masataka Shimizu, president of Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the crisis-hit Fukushima nuclear plant, fell sick March 16 and took some days off from the liaison office between the government and the utility firm, TEPCO officials said Sunday.

While Shimizu was away from the office set up at the firm's headquarters, he collected information and issued instructions from a different room of the headquarters building to address the troubles at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station hit by the March 11 quake and subsequent tsunami, the officials said. He has already recovered and come back to work at the liaison office, they said.

(Reuters) - Trace amounts of radioactive iodine linked to Japan's crippled nuclear power station have turned up in rainwater samples as far away as Massachusetts during the past week, state officials said on Sunday.

The low level of radioiodine-131 detected in precipitation at a sample location in Massachusetts is comparable to findings in California, Washington state and Pennsylvania and poses no impact to drinking supplies, public health officials said.

Air samples from the same location in Massachusetts have shown no detectable radiation.

The samples are being collected from more than 100 sites around the country that are part of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Radiation Network monitoring system.

Tokyo Electric Power Company has asked independent research centers to check if radioactive substances from the Fukushima plant contain highly toxic plutonium.

The company says it expects the results will be available within several days.

The nuclear power plant continues to emit radioactive materials that may include plutonium.
Plutonium is a radioactive element that is produced when uranium fission occurs in a reactor core.

So far, the utility firm has not detected plutonium through its own methods.

In order to resolve the problem of the contaminated water, the utility says it is trying to accelerate work at the Number-one reactor to pump the water from the basement into the turbine condenser for storage by increasing the number of pumps from one to 3.

The company says although it had planned to take similar steps to remove the water from the Number-2 and -3 reactors, their turbine condensers were found to have been almost full and unable to contain any more water.

The company says it is considering pumping that water from the condensers into adjacent pools and then filling them with the contaminated water.

Regarding spent fuel rods in the storage pools, the company told reporters early Monday morning that the pools in the Number-2 and -4 reactors appear to be filled with water, with the rods submerged.

European leaders agreed on Friday (25 March) to set the "highest standards" of nuclear safety and submit all plants to "stress tests", in the wake of the unfolding crisis at Japan's stricken Fukushima plant.

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France, Germany and Spain raised the possibility of closing any of Europe's 143 reactors that fail stress tests to be held this year. Leaders at a summit in Brussels also called for Europe's neighbours to follow suit.

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France, which hopes to turn the clampdown to its advantage as it tries to sell its nuclear technology overseas, sought to set an example by saying it would close reactors that failed.

A 40-year old Spanish nuclear power plant built to the same design model as Fukushima's disaster-struck reactor number one has become engulfed by calls for it to be shut down, while Brussels is questioning the safety of EU installations and has pushed for stress tests of nuclear power plants.

Antonio Cornado, communications manager for Spain's Consejo de Seguridad Nuclear (Nuclear Safety Council) regulator, confirmed to EurActiv that the Santa Maria de Garona plant, about 70 miles south of Bilbao, contains a General Electric Mark 1 Boiling Water Reactor (BWR) system, of a similar variety to that in Fukushima's reactor number one.

"It's the same type," he said. "It is a Mark 1, but there are several performance [enhancements] that are better than the original design. There have been a lot of safety modifications."

Questions about the model's safety were "closed" 20 years ago, he added.

Radiation levels that can prove fatal were detected outside reactor buildings at Japan's Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant for the first time, complicating efforts to contain the worst disaster since Chernobyl in 1986.

Water in an underground trench outside the No. 2 reactor had levels exceeding 1 sievert an hour, a spokesman for plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. told reporters in the capital today. Thirty minutes of exposure to that dose would trigger nausea and four hours might lead to death within two months, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Preventing the most-contaminated water from leaking into the ground or air is key to containing the spread of radiation beyond the plant. A partial meltdown of fuel rods in the No. 2 reactor probably caused a jump in the readings, Japan's chief government spokesman said today.

Check it out here.


Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano says he has strongly instructed Tokyo Electric Power Company to avoid the release of erroneous data on radiation leaks at its troubled nuclear power plant.

TEPCO on Sunday corrected an earlier announcement about the radiation levels in water leaking from the Number 2 reactor's turbine building, saying a water analysis had been incorrect.

Edano said radiation analyses serve as the basis for ensuring safety at the plant, where workers are struggling to safely cool the reactors and other machinery.

He said he also urged TEPCO to secure adequate back-up personnel for the workers.

Japan's nuclear safety watchdog says it believes radioactive elements from melted nuclear fuel have found their way from one of the reactors at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi plant to a turbine building here.

Radiation levels 100,000 times that found in water in an normally operating reactor were detected in water puddles in the Number 2 reactor's turbine building on Sunday. High radiation figures were earlier recorded at similar locations at the Number 1 and 3 reactors.

The Nuclear Safety Commission, an independent body, says the radiation level at the Number 2 reactor was dozens of times that of the other two reactors.

The commission says that radioactive substances from temporarily melted fuel rods at the Number 2 reactor had made their way into water in the containment vessel and then somehow leaked out.

More than 28,000 people have died or are missing following the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan's northeast coast on March 11th.

The National Police Agency says that as of 6 PM on Monday, 10,901 people had been confirmed dead and 17,621 listed as missing. Police have identified 8,030 of the bodies.

The largest number of deaths --- 6,627 --- has been reported in Miyagi Prefecture, with 3,242 dead in Iwate and 974 in Fukushima.

Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima are the prefectures hardest-hit by the quake and tsunami.

TOKYO, March 28 (Reuters) - Japan's top business lobby gave the government the green light to scrap a planned cut in the corporate tax rate and urged firms to look at shifting production to western Japan as the nation grapples with its worst crisis since World War Two.

Hiromasa Yonekura, chairman of the Japan Business Federation, said the influential lobby would not fight the government if it decided to shelve a plan to lower the corporate tax rate, which at around 40 percent is among the highest in the industrialised world.

Economics Minister Kaoru Yosano suggested last week the government should reconsider the planned tax cut of 5 percentage points from April to prioritise spending on reconstruction and prevent the country's already massive debt pile from growing. [ID:nL3E7EP06B]

"I don't mind if the government skips cutting the corporate tax rate," Yonekura, who is also chairman of Sumitomo Chemical , told a regular briefing in Tokyo. "Instead I want the

government to move swiftly in its recovery efforts."

The effort to cool reactors at the damaged nuclear power plant in Fukushima, northern Japan, is facing the risk of leaking highly radioactive substances.

The plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company, raised water pumping power on Sunday to cool the No. 2 reactor in a stable manner. On Monday, the company cut back on the amount of injected water.

The move followed the Nuclear Safety Commission's announcement that highly radioactive substances detected in puddles of water in the basement of the reactor's turbine building may have come directly from the vessel containing the reactor.

16 tons of water was being injected into the reactor every hour but TEPCO now says it wants to reduce the amount to 7 tons. This would be enough to replace the amount that is evaporating.

If the injected water level is reduced, temperatures may increase in the reactor.

Since Japan's earthquake and tsunami, we've learned a little more each day about where many of the materials for our cars come from. Even the paint that coats cars and trucks is impacted, at least on Ford and Nissan vehicles.

Ford is telling its dealers not to order vehicles in Tuxedo Black paint or in three variations of red, according to USA Today.

The pigments for those paints come from a Japanese supplier.

Plutonium has been detected in soil at five locations at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Monday.

The operator of the nuclear complex said that the plutonium is believed to have been discharged from nuclear fuel at the plant, which was damaged by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami

IDG News Service - Japanese DRAM maker Elpida Memory on Monday said its factories are operating "at close to normal levels" two weeks after the 9.0-magnitude earthquake in Japan, and that it has "sufficient parts and materials to continue supplying out customers as usual until the end of July."

Although the company said it is in discussions to secure further materials after July and doesn't expect any interruption to its business, Elpida will find itself competing against a growing number of chip makers seeking the same materials, 300-millimeter (12-inch) silicon wafers. The earthquake and resulting tsunami have affected production at key factories making these wafers, the raw materials that chips are etched onto.

Market researcher IHS iSuppli estimates that damage to these factories could reduce the supply of silicon wafers globally by 25%, which "could have a major effect on worldwide semiconductor production," particularly DRAM chips. Compounding earthquake and tsunami damage, other chip factories are being hurt by rolling blackouts meant to share electricity made scarce because several power plants were knocked offline in the disaster.

(Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog's chief on Monday called for a summit to strengthen nuclear safety and improve disaster management following Japan's crisis.

Japan is struggling to avert a severe meltdown at its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and officials said on Monday highly radioactive water had been leaking from the site, hit by an earthquake and tsunami two weeks ago.

IAEA chief Yukiya Amano said he wanted ministers from the International Atomic Energy Agency's 151 member states to attend the summit in Vienna, possibly to be held in June.

"(The) political level is needed, this is a very important issue, this is not only for experts or technical people," he told a news conference.

He described the situation at the site as "very serious."

Containment building - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

From a distance, the BWR design looks very different from PWR designs because usually a square building is used for containment. Also, because there is only one loop through the turbines and reactor, and the steam going through the turbines is also slightly radioactive, the turbine building has to be considerably shielded as well. This leads to two buildings of similar construction with the taller one housing the reactor and the short long one housing the turbine hall and supporting structures.

International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Yukiya Amano said Monday that he believes it will take some time before the situation at the quake-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in northeastern Japan to stabilize.

Speaking at a press conference, Amano also repeatedly emphasized that the situation at the plant in Fukushima Prefecture is still serious. But he also said he believes that the problem will be solved through the efforts of those at the site.

(H/T to Booman)

Think of what the world would be facing if this had hit the Fukushima reactors.

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

The French Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety provided some pretty interesting simulations on anticipated nuclide concentrations and impacts to Fukushima and surrounding area for first seven days of accident. The one thing they don't look at is topography, and that this is a mountainous region with weather and radiation concentrated in river valleys (as shown in DOE results).

- Atmospheric dispersion analysis and animation.

- Whole body doses (in milliseiverts).

- Iodine-131 dose levels.

- Global dispersion analysis and animation.

Their update for March 22 includes estimates for rare gases, iodine, cesium, and tellurium, and suggests 10% "the releases estimated during the Chernobyl accident."

Tokyo Electric Power Company announced on Monday that a puddle of water was found in a trench outside the No. 2 reactor turbine building at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant on Sunday afternoon. It said the radiation reading on the puddle's surface indicated more than 1,000 millisieverts per hour.

The concrete trench is 4 meters high and 3 meters wide and houses power cables and pipes. It is located in the compound of the plant but outside the radiation control area.
TEPCO says the trench extends 76 meters toward the sea but does not reach the sea, and that the contaminated water was not flowing into the sea.

From an earlier report the water reached 1m from the top, so its a lot of highly radioactive water.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.