Japan declares 'nuclear emergency' after quake - PART 2

And let us not forget this from a year ago,
28 Signs That The West Coast Is Being Absolutely Fried With Nuclear Radiation From Fukushima,



Greetings:

The map above comes from the Nuclear Emergency Tracking Center.

It shows that radiation levels at radiation monitoring stations all over the country are elevated on 21 October 2013.

 
As you will notice, this is particularly true along the West Coast of the United States.

Every single day, 300 (some sources say 400+, and all admit that it is a guess) tons of radioactive water from Fukushima contaminates the Pacific Ocean.

That means that the total amount of radioactive material released from Fukushima is constantly increasing, and it is steadily building up in our food chain….bioaccumulation.
 
Ultimately, all of this nuclear radiation will outlive all of us by a very wide margin.  TEPCO is saying that it could take up to 40 years (and others are saying a hundred years is more realistic) to clean up the Fukushima disaster, and meanwhile, countless innocent people will develop cancer and other health problems as a result of exposure to high levels of nuclear radiation.

We are talking about a nuclear disaster that is absolutely unprecedented, and it is constantly getting worse.


Interesting, this is today, 22 March 2015.


A little leaky - like tritium - from Brown's Ferry?

Montgomery, Alabama is downwind…

a reply to: thorfourwinds
I have always wondered WHY the hell they leveled off the elevation of the fuku construction site down to where it is ( I mean that cost a ton of dough, and I kind of figured that they did it to save costs on pumping cooling water up/down to seaa level radiators) .
THe water running under the site explains a great deal though as to why they wanted most of it at that low elevation.

It would have massively decreased the initial cost of construction by allowing them to have vastly smaller heat dissapaters/radiators ( remember surface area and contact time are the most important factors in heat transfere ) . With a 'naturally powered' water flow over the cooling pipes/radiators in the calculation to aid cooling it becomes apparent WHY they did not have enough emergency cooling capacity ( even if everything was working ) from the word "go" .

This is also direct evidence that they knew full well from well before day one , that if there ever was a melt out then the natural water cycles would be impacted and that that thinking obviously intended the ocean to act as a silent partner by invisible underground dilution from underground water transport.

Tepco's actions from the beginning to now make this evident.

SO .. a solution...

working on the graphene meme: use the same technique as the lightscribe drive method ( using a laser etching technique to create graphene ) . One should be able to use OTST ( off the shelf tech ) to create graphene that can be made into tubes about an inch in diameter. make them as long as possible with one end open ( the bottom ) and one end closed ( the top ) arrange them in bundles and place them so that they are steam concentrators/traps over already existing melt cores. At a guess they should fill from the top down with precipitants at which point ( highly radio active ) but they can be removed/ stored/managed .

And for sure create a system that the melt cores down in the ground we will not be able to get to / move in at least the next decade DO NOT HAVE ACTIVE TRANSPORT WATER THAT FLOWS INTO THE OCEAN, whatever the source.

One a slightly different note, I do not think dumping into "subduction zones" is a good idea AS we DO NOT KNOW FOR SURE THAT IS HOW THE WORLD WORKS. Tectonic theory is just that: a theory , we have no way of knowing if subduction actually occurs and the age of the ocean floor samples show the exact opposite of what tectonic theory predicts. If dumping is the only option then the Russian method of deep trench dumping in VERY cold waters is on the table, though we now know this may engender problems or even eradicate an entire extreme marine habitat that we have seen existing quite happily with only thermal and chemical energy at those depths. But at this point critical decisions need to be assessed , in other words we will have to sacrifice something ( unless we have a technological breakthrough ) somewhere concise in order to reduce the ongoing effects everywhere.

originally posted by: thorfourwinds
Here's the plan to divert the underground river around the plant.

This image shows why TEPCO is desperate to convince the world that the recent high levels in groundwater aren't coming from underground. On the back slope just to the left of the south river diversion channel are the two boring wells that have been posting high readings. If that contamination isnt coming from leaking tanks, than it's coming from something underground that is upstream from the reactors, either corium that has traveled in that direction, or from the weapons factory. If one of those is the source than all the remediation plans are a waste of time (hahahahaha what else is new).

Hey everyone - thanks for keeping us updated with this catastrophe with your brilliant minds, ideas and research!

I came across this today -

yournewswire.com...

All Nuclear Fuel Has Melted At Fukushima, Say TEPCO - See more at: yournewswire.com...

The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) are claiming that almost all the fuel inside one of the Fukushima nuclear plant’s reactors has melted.

Japantoday.com reports:

Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) said the technology, which uses elementary particles called “muon” to create x-ray style images, gave the most concrete evidence yet the fuel had dropped to the bottom of No. 1 reactor.

“While our previous analysis have already strongly suggested that fuel rods had melted down, the latest study provided further data that we like to regard as progress in our effort to determine the exact locations of the debris,” said a TEPCO spokesman.

lol - like its 'news' to us... four years to confirm 'a' meltdown.....

Tepco wasted half a billion dollars on cleanup....

gizmodo.com...

"The cleanup of Fukushima's leaking nuclear plant has been long, expensive, and plagued with problems. Now, the AP reports a government audit has found that more than a third of the budget for cleanup was wasted—totaling hundreds of millions of dollars.

The previous allegations of incompetence and straight-up lies that surround Tokyo Electric Power Co, or Tepco, the company responsible for the cleanup, might make you wonder if any of those millions were lost to corruption. But the Associated Press says that most of it was wasted because no one really knew how to clean up the site. The company spent millions on systems and machines that theoretically might have worked. But didn't.

The Ice Wall That Wouldn't Freeze

Let's start with what AP calls "the unfrozen trench," contaminated water leaks into these trenches—tunnels, really—that run alongside the plant, creating a major hazard. Tepco started injecting the water with coolants in an attempt to freeze it, creating an ice wall of sorts as Gizmodo reported. It didn't work.

Tepco says "it has proved exceptionally difficult" to freeze the trenches completely, according to World Nuclear News. "Tepco subsidiary Tokyo Power Technology even threw in chunks of ice, but eventually had to pour in cement to seal the trench," says the AP. The project cost $840,000, which is chump change compared to other items on the list."

More at the link.....

Sorry, here is the full AP report.

bigstory.ap.org...

M

And the nightmare continues......

www.globalconreview.com...

Four years after Fukushima, Japan approves restarting a reactor

24 March 2015 | By David Rogers

Four years after the Fukushima Daiichi disaster, Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority has given its approval for the first restart of a reactor, signalling the beginning of the return of Japan’s nuclear energy industry.

The NRA has approved the redesign of Kyushu Electric Power’s Sendai 1 reactor on the southern island of Kyushu. It is now conducting a battery of safety tests, which are expected to be complete in August, after which the 846MW reactor will come back online. The Sendai station’s second reactor is expected to follow suit in October.

The return of nuclear power will be a welcome development for Japan’s government: before the partial meltdown at Fukushima, nuclear power accounted for 48GW, or 30% of the country’s generating capacity, and the plan was to increase this to 50% by 2030.

More at the link.....

a reply to: wishes

a fluorescent red dye (environmentally friendly of course) 2 gallons poured around the 'torus ring' would give tepco a basic idea where this fuel wants to go.
all eyes on the coastline for pinpoint location of fissures and other egress locations.

these guys need to coffer-dam the entire site---damn it!
f.

a reply to: matadoor

Hard to believe they would choose a reactor close to one of the worlds great calderas that is currently active. Aira caldera, I think about 25 miles from the plant, is home to Sakurajima volcano which is an active composite volcano and is currently at Alert Level 3 with periodic rumblings. JMA reported last week that 10 explosions from Showa Crater at Sakurajima ejected pyroclasts as far as 1,300 meters during 13-16 March. Incandescence from the crater was periodically visible at night, and inflation continued to be detected. During 11-17 March plumes rose to altitudes of 1.8-4.3 km (6,000-14,000 ft) and drifted SE, E, and N. The Alert Level remained at 3.

The resumption of eruptions at the Showa crater in June 2006 marked a return of activity at this vent after 58 years, and since then activity has been ongoing and increasing. From 2009 to December 2012, a strong and continuous period of volcanic activity was recorded at Sakurajima producing plumes and pyroclastic ejections.

I can only think the reason they chose Sendai was because its the furthest plant from Fukushima.

Just had a good laugh. Was trying to find info on the situation at Boone Dam, upriver from 3 nuke plants, were there is the possibility of structural failure that has been ongoing since last fall. At the TVA website and Facebook pages there is very little mention of the possible dam failure any more. Instead, on the anniversary of Fukushima they posted this.

“With safety as the top priority, all three of TVA’s nuclear stations are investing in an entirely new layer of protective backup systems including supplemental diesel generators and pumps to make sure TVA is prepared for extreme events like tornadoes, earthquakes or severe flooding like that caused by the tidal wave that hit Fukushima, Japan on this date four years ago.”

Severe flooding like Fukushima? The only way those plants would suffer that level of flooding is if the Boone Dam gives way. And if that happens the Tennessee Valley can kiss its ass goodby.

Plus it raises the question they dont expect people to ask. A so called safe nuke plant is now going to be safer. How many levels to safe are there. Is there a barely safe, sorta safe, pretty safe, definitely safe and really really safe scale that we can judge safe stuff by. And if safety was truly the top priority, why did they wait till now to make it safe from EQs and severe flooding.

Does Bart Simpson still work at the TVA?

all of the evidence that is shown here, all the destruction that is wrought by nuclear power
and still everyone wants them and they are continuously being built.
as was stated earlier, the west coast is being pummeled heavily, its wildlife is dying off at alarming rates.
people need to understand that besides the ocean being turned into a dead zone..it also comes down in
the rain. it sinks into the ground and is brought back up in plants, animals eat the plants, we harvest the animals.
what doesnt sink into the ground, evaporates into the air to be blown about by the wind. this stuff never goes away.
after a rain storm you may track it into your house where it dries and becomes airborn. cows eat the grass..you drink the milk..or eat the cows..its everywhere, and it will never go away.

thor; I just caught this post about theFDA banning so many food products because of radionucletides...Wow!, Jesus, I mean think of all those people sitting in HOllywood right now chowing down on their radio-active shiitake mushrooms. You know now that so much has come out about how actually bad thinks are I wonder if all those television personalities and government blockheads regret partaking of Fuku foods for those 2011 photo ops? (like this one )



After taking a look at the 'moun' photo of the reactor at number one and seeing that empty core I found an interesting video that is over a year old ( the date on the page is 3-27-2014) indicating Tepco really didn't need the photo to "know" the core was gone.

An interesting tid bit comes at the end of the animation where the announcer says, " ...(the core melt in the bottom of the reactor, somewhere ) will remain there UNTIL THE TECHNOLOGY TO REMOVE IT IS AVAILABLE "

I really , really want to see one of those Moun pictures of the core at three.

But if the core melt must stay in the ground until some unicorn level technology becomes available I wonder HOW Tepco calculates this (revised upward for the dozenth time ) timeline:

Roadmap for Decommissioning the Plant (2013 Fuel Removal) They call the removal of spent fuel rods from the reactor 4 building the first milestone of the process. That operation began last November. It's expected to be finished by the end of this year(sic 2014).
After that, the plan is to move on to the other 3 reactor buildings. (By 2020 Spent Fuel Removal Completed)

The government and TEPCO want to finish removing the spent fuel rods and start extracting the melted fuel by 2020. That's the year Tokyo hosts the Olympics. (2020 Melted Fuel Removal Starts)

Taking out that fuel is expected to require another 10 to 15 years.

(By 2051 Complete Decommissioning) Then, crews will start dismantling the reactors. The estimated completion date for that job is 2051 at the latest 40 years after the accident. But some experts say the entire decommissioning process will likely take longer. One of the major factors slowing things down is the constant build up of contaminated water

SO ... they think they can get melt mass out of all 'cores' by 2035

2035.

Though no work on the cores will start until at least 2020 ( an overly optimistic opinion on finding a unicorn between now and then but let's give them the benefit of the doubt...) , so, they will have to keep cooling the core melts at about the same rate as now...which means they are going to need to use about the same amount of water for the next five years , at least.

" ...one of the major factors...contaminated water..." , right, so a couple of quick back of the napkin calculations about that pesky water problem;

As of December 2014 Tepco had over 500,000 tons of water in (leaky) storage tanks on site, and has admitted to at least 400 tons of water a day leaking into the ocean 24/7/365.
First tons into gallons: 500,000T * 2000lbs/T / 8.34lbs/g = 119,904,076.74 gallons of highly toxic radioactive liquid waste stored on-site .
500,000 tons sure sounds a lot better than than 120million gallons, right?
So 120,000,000g / 1410 days ( takes us to the end of 2014) = 85,106 gallons per day of storage capacity produced/needed
Now the 400 tons a day of leakage over the last four years ; 400T*2000lbs/T / 8.34lbs/g = 95,923.26g/day leaking into the ocean,
For reference that's approximately 135,000,000 gallons of highly radioactive water leaked into the ocean between 3-11-2011 and 12-31-2014
Notice that they are leaking more than they are catching every day

Moving forward from now 2015, until 2020 they will need: 85,106g/d * 1825d = 155,318,450 gallons of additional core melt waste storage tank space
and will leak another 95,923g/d * 1825d = 175,059,475 gallons of highly toxic water into the ocean

By the time the Olympics rolls around , 2020, they will have 275,000,000g in tanks and will have released 310,000,000g into the ocean since day one and NONE of the CORE MELT WILL EVEN HAVE BEEN started to be removed yet.

Assuming Tepco finds it's magical unicorn nuclear cleaning tool by their proposed date of 2035 ( assuming that leakage and usage rates will decline linearly as core material is removed ( cough ) ) then a conservative estimate would be an additional 458,333,333g/storage ( for a grand total of ~ 733,333,333g/storage ) and an additional 516,666,666g dumped in the ocean ( for a grand total of 826,666,666 g ).

I am sure that much plutonium and uranium floating around in solution isn't something that Ann Coulter would bat an eyelash over, but then again enough Shiitake mushrooms and she may not have eyelashes to bat

Silverlok, GREAT math!

Thank you.

And the beat goes on:



US firm hired to save Fukushima from 400k tons of radioactive water — RT USA

10 June 2014

TEPCO, the company in charge of the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant, cannot filter a dangerous radioactive isotope out of about 400,000 metric tons of water before returning it to the sea, and has contracted with a US company for a second system.

At the site, Toshiba Corp's Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS), which was designed to remove the most dangerous nuclides from water, has been in intermittent operation for the past two years, Reuters reported. Two of the three ALPS units, each capable of processing 250 tons of water per day, were taken offline in May after high levels of calcium were found in the water leaving the system.

MEDIA BIAS AND DIS-INFO
Calcium?
Afraid to use the word: TRITIUM?

One of those units resumed processing water on Tuesday. The third processor, taken offline in April after filters and gaskets deteriorated due to radiation exposure, came back online on May 23, Bloomberg reported.


The new TEPCO contract with US-based Kurion Inc. provides for a mobile water-filtration system mounted on trucks to be used alongside the ALPS processors, which are designed to decontaminate 62 of the 63 radioisotopes present in tank water to prepare it for release into the environment, Kurion said. The truck-based filters will focus solely on strontium reduction.

MEDIA BIAS AND DIS-INFO
The missing radioisotope is TRITIUM.

However, this from TEPCO:

As if the damage above ground isn’t enough to worry about, the 9 -magnitude earthquake apparently cracked the walls of the plant, allowing about 400 tons of groundwater to seep into the buildings and mix with the tainted coolant water.

MEDIA BIAS AND DIS-INFO
That would be 400 tons (at least) per day.

Tepco has controlled the coolant volume to ensure the inflow of groundwater is stronger, which will help keep it in the buildings.

TEPCOSPEAK

About 260,000 tons of tainted water are stored in tanks; Tepco thinks it could probably store up to 700,000 tons if it had time to build more tanks. But as it stands today, there are only enough tanks to store about 60,000 more tons, which means they only have months before the entire site begins to flood.

“The contaminated water is a pressing issue,” said Takahashi.
[…]
Tepco also will have to find a way to dispose of water processed by ALPS. Since Tepco is trying to limit the amount of coolant to reduce the leak rate, any water purified by ALPS won’t be reused as coolant.

And even ALPS cannot remove tritium.

According to Tepco, the level of tritium in the contaminated water is between 1 million and 5 million becquerels per liter, and the legal limit is 60,000. Tritium has a half life of about 12 to 13 years and is about one-thousandth as radioactive as the isotopes cesium-134 and -137.

MEDIA BIAS AND DIS-INFO

Tritium… is about one-thousandth as radioactive…

That is not true. While tritium decays a lot faster than other radioactive substances such as cesium-134, it is NOT less radioactive. It just doesn't last as long.

“Strontium is the greatest emitter of radiation impacting site dose-rates,” Kurion founder and President John Raymont said in a statement. “So reducing strontium in tank water stored on-site will significantly improve worker safety and reduces the risk to the surrounding environment.”

Kurion’s system will filter about 79,000 gallons of water per day, however will not totally clean up the water.

“But most of the highly radioactive stuff will be taken out,” KPLU reported.

Currently, the tanks at Fukushima store approximately 400,000 metric tons of radioactive water, and that volume is expanding at 400 tons per day, Kurion said.

The US-based company, whose motto is “Isolating waste from the environment,” has been working with TEPCO since 2011, when “cesium… presented the greatest immediate threat to human safety and the environment,” Raymont said in the statement.

TEPCO is expected to commence construction of the underground ice-wall—which, along with a recently implemented groundwater-bypass scheme, is part of TEPCO’s approach to reduce the amount of radioactive groundwater now being stored and treated in temporary tank farms on the site—in June and finish the project sometime in March 2015, according to the Japan Daily Press on May 27.

The wall is designed to operate for about seven years.

The ice-wall project involves sinking tubes carrying coolant, one metre apart, up to 30 metres underground and in a roughly 1.5-kilometre rectangular shape around four reactors. The piped refrigerant, at minus-30 ° C, would freeze groundwater and create an impervious two-metre-thick soil wall.

Freezing out Fukushima's radioactive water - Al Jazeera English

1 October 2014
Until recently, some 400 tonnes of groundwater flowed into the plant every day, mixing with highly radioactive coolant water collecting in the basements of the reactor buildings and adjoining turbine facilities.

More than 1,000 tanks clog the site, and empty ones are being filled daily. As of September 23, the total volume of water stored had reached b]583,000 tonnes, according to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI).

Water, water everywhere

14 December 2014

The first response to combat the water contamination problem was to reject remediation proposals given by experts, such as building a concrete wall 60 feet into the ground to stop the estimated 76,000 gallons of groundwater from leaking into the ocean."

MEDIA BIAS AND DIS-INFO
400 tons/day is about 96,000 gallons…off on the low side by 2o,ooo gallons.

Instead, TEPCO hurriedly constructed plastic- and clay-lined underground water storage pits that soon developed leaks.

When that plan didn’t work, their next step was to build above-ground storage tanks – a lot of them – to store the cooling water and some of the groundwater runoff. At the time, there was no good, efficient way to clean the water, so TEPCO just kept building more tanks to try to stay ahead of the problem.

As the tank farm grew, it was discovered that more than 300 tons of radioactive water had leaked out of a storage tank onto the site.

a reply to: thorfourwinds
Water, water, everywhere and na'er a truth to drink
Water, water everywhere AND ALL THE WORLD DID SHRINK

..and those ARE CONSERVATIVE NUMBERS

Just as a tidbit of info.

I reported here a while back that RSOE EDIS had taken Fuky off their list of long term events.

Well ..... its back!

RSOE EDIS

Thank you to all of the regular posters trying to keep this where it should be, front page news.

P

a reply to: pheonix358

yes thanks to you regulars who keep this thread up to date...I duck in here and check it out....you all do a great job!

originally posted by: pheonix358
Just as a tidbit of info.

I reported here a while back that RSOE EDIS had taken Fuky off their list of long term events.

Well ..... its back!

P

Except that they are listing it as a volcano eruption. I hope they arent being prescient.

Event date: 12:36:17 PM 22/02/2015
Event: Volcano Eruption
Country: Japan
State: Prefecture of Fukushima
Area: Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant

Thanks to Research and pheonix!!

Okay campers, some "breaking" news from ABC. What I find amusing is, no one actually researches anything anymore in the media. Just publish whatever the company puts out.

abcnews.go.com...

Technology to Look Inside Fukushima Reactors Faces Challenge
YOKOHAMA, Japan — Mar 27, 2015, 11:36 AM ET
By YURI KAGEYAMA AP Business Writer
Associated Press
The cutting-edge technology was billed as a way to decipher where exactly the morass of nuclear fuel might sit at the bottom of reactors in the Japanese power plant that went into multiple meltdowns four years ago.

But what went wrong, even in a simple demonstration for reporters Friday for the 500 million yen ($5 million) project, was a sobering reminder of the enormous challenges that lie ahead for the decommissioning of Fukushima Dai-ichi.

Muons are cosmic-ray subatomic particles so tiny they go through almost anything except for so-called heavy elements like uranium and plutonium used for nuclear fuel. They can help present a picture of what's inside an object, similar to the way doctors use X-rays, and have been used to study the Egyptian pyramids, the insides of volcanoes and ship cargo at ports.

The ideal scenario goes like this: Two giant walls more than two stories high will be set up right next to each reactor to shoot out muons so that data from how the muons scatter after hitting what's inside, picked up by sensors, can be analyzed. Such image-mapping is possible because muons will bend at different angles, depending on the material they hit.

More at the link...

Some FDA Officials to be disciplined. And they certainly should be.

www.taipeitimes.com...

PRAISE FOR SOME:An official and assistant researcher responsible for inspection at Keelung Harbor are to get merit marks for helping uncover some illicit products

By Stacy Hsu / Staff reporter


Three Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials are to face disciplinary measures, while two are to receive merit awards amid a scare about foodstuffs imported from Japan’s Fukushima region that has implicated more than 10 trading firms and 250 products, Ministry of Health and Welfare spokesman Wang Che-chao (王哲超) said yesterday morning.

Wang’s announcement during a press conference in Taipei came one day after Executive Yuan spokesperson Sun Lih-chyun (孫立群) said Premier Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) had asked the ministry to look into the FDA’s alleged delayed publication of findings that a number of Taiwanese companies had illegally imported food products from five banned Japanese prefectures by fabricating labels of origin.

“Premier Mao also instructed the ministry to discipline all responsible parties, reflect on its mistakes and make necessary improvements,” Sun on Thursday quoted Mao as saying.

More at the link, but geez...

a reply to: zworld

Um, sorry, not sure where you are looking.

Sensors at the Fukushima nuclear plant have detected a fresh leak of highly radioactive water into the sea. Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) said the sensors, which were rigged to a gutter that pours rain and ground water at the Fukushima Daiichi plant to a nearby bay, detected contamination levels up to 70 times greater than the already-high radioactive status seen at the plant campus. TEPCO said its emergency inspections of tanks storing nuclear waste water did not find any additional abnormalities, but the firm said it shut the gutter to prevent radioactive water from going into the Pacific Ocean.

It is under long term rolling events and is listed as Environment Pollution.

Here

P

a reply to: pheonix358

The thing I quoted was from the alert map, if you clicked on the Fuku symbol on this page hisz.rsoe.hu...

But now if you click on it it says the following, having changed the volcano alert to a biological hazard.

Event date: 12:36:17 PM 22/02/2015
Event: Biological Hazard
Country: Japan
State: Prefecture of Fukushima
Area: Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant

Not sure if even that is the right way to state it though biological hazard is definately happening.