Radiation near Japan nuke plants too high for workers...

As if the findings by these robots is something that was unexpected...Without workers,these problems wont be able to be repaired. So they will either have to lie or force th workes to endanger their own lives if they want the problems taken care of...

TOKYO (AP) — A pair of thin robots on treads sent to explore buildings inside Japan’s crippled nuclear reactor came back Monday with disheartening news: Radiation levels are far too high for repair crews to go inside.

Officials said Monday that radiation had spiked in a water tank in Unit 2 and contaminated water was discovered in other areas of the plant, underscoring the growing list of challenges facing TEPCO in cleaning up and containing the radiation. They also described in more detail the damage to fuel in three troubled reactors, saying pellets had melted.

Workers have not been able to enter the reactor buildings at the stricken plant since the first days after the cooling systems were wrecked by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that left more than 27,000 people dead or missing. Hydrogen explosions in both buildings in the first few days destroyed their roofs and scattered radioactive debris.On Sunday, a plant worker opened an outer door to one of the buildings and two Packbots, which resemble drafting lamps on tank-like treads, entered. After the worker closed the door, one robot opened an inner door and both rolled inside to take readings for temperature, pressure and radioactivity. They later entered a second building.The robots reported radioactivity readings of up to 49 millisieverts per hour inside Unit 1 and up to 57 inside Unit 3, levels too high for workers to realistically enter.

“It’s a harsh environment for humans to work inside,” said Hidehiko Nishiyama of Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.

Japanese authorities more than doubled the legal limit for nuclear workers since the crisis began to 250 millisieverts a year. Workers in the U.S. nuclear industry are allowed an upper limit of 50 millisieverts per year. Doctors say radiation sickness sets in at 1,000 millisieverts and includes nausea and vomiting.

Sturdier robots can remove some of the debris, but workers are needed to test the integrity of the equipment and carry out electrical repairs needed to restore the cooling systems as called for in the road map, Yoshizawa said.“What robots can do is limited, so eventually, people must enter the buildings,” TEPCO official Takeshi Makigami said.

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"some fuel pellets and rods in the reactors in Units 1, 2 and 3 had become overheated and melted, the first time it had provided details of the damage to the fuel. Nishiyama, said the agency can only say “more than 3 percent” of the fuel rods have melted."

Hmmm...comforting....(sarcasm)

So basically they're #ed?

reply to post by heyJude


from wha i have read,yeah pretty much....theres not much they can do..either the workers volunteer to risk their lives,in which its probably a safe bet thet they will get radition poisoning or they get forced to do it..which means they will too...either way it doesnt look good for anyone at this moment...

Strange, why is no one posting in here?

It's the silence of certainty.

Whenever they come to the point where they will only offer the lower end of the scale of danger.. you know their lawyers have told them to "say nothing or face liability." Since the pesky "people" demand answers, they get this.... "we only know it's above 3%."

the solution is quite simply, really.

50mSv/hr and 250 per year? work four hour shifts, earn big bucks, then let someone else continue and rake in the dough.

expensive, yes, one would need a lot of people, too, who you'd have to train a bit i presume, but overall there is no reason not to spread out the dose. after all it worked in Chernobyl, where remnants of the reactor remained critical in open air and radiation was much worse. of course, in Fukushima you're facing additional risk from collapsed structures, which could easily trap you, but that can be alleviated by proceeding methodically and with caution.

the longer i see the situation unfolding the more i believe the whole mess goes beyond incompetence. i imagine if volunteers worked at the plant, they'd have a hard time keeping a lid on the true nature of the situation. people wouldn't understand why they keep pumping new water in when they have a basement full of contaminated brew they could use until it's vaporised. instead they store it until they dump it in the ocean one day.

i think international pressure is needed at this point, otherwise the Japanese gov't will only watch as contamination slowly accumulates, which should of course have been the top priority from day 1.