Japan declares 'nuclear emergency' after quake - PART 2

www.telegraph.co.uk...

Duh. We knew damn well what the consequences of nuclear power were when we exploded the bomb at Alamagordo. The statement that we are just now understanding the dangers of nuclear power is absurd. People who pretend this is the case should be summarily shot.

Fukushima radiation fears for fish along Oregon coast unwarranted, scientists say

More than two years after a 9.0 earthquake and estimated 45-foot tsunami crippled the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in northern Japan and caused a triple meltdown, Oregon State scientists have continued finding a slight fingerprint of radioactive particles in local albacore, which migrate throughout the Pacific. (Tests on sardines and herring haven’t shown any traces.)

The levels are so infinitesimally low, the researchers say, that a person would need to eat 4,000 pounds of albacore a year just to increase their average annual dose of radiation by 1 percent. “It’s not going to be anywhere close to being a food safety impact,” said Delvan Neville, a radiation health physicist at Oregon State, who’s testing the fish. (He still eats seafood.)

The radioactivity measured in fish is far too slight to register on a Geiger counter, Neville said. Its detection says more about the sensitivity of scientists’ testing equipment, Neville and other researchers said, than it does about the threat to public health.

Concerns along the coast have come as the recovery at Fukushima has haltingly advanced, plagued by accidents, contaminated water spills and leaks. While Tokyo Electric Power Company workers on Monday began removing fuel rods from one reactor that didn’t suffer a meltdown, the cleanup is expected to take years. Miscalculations and other mistakes at Fukushima have left Norris doubtful that the problem is fully understood. Scientists haven’t tested all fish, he said.
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Fish in the 1980s and 1990s were actually more radioactive because of those weapons tests than those found today with traces of particles from Fukushima, Neville said.

The trace radioactive particles found in albacore are cesium isotopes, most likely released during the meltdowns immediately following the earthquake and tsunami, said Kathryn Higley, head of Oregon State’s nuclear engineering and radiation health physics department. (She hasn’t stopped eating fish, either. “Oh God no,” she said.)

Source

Uncertainties abound in Fukushima decommissioning

Computer simulations show the melted fuel in Unit 1, whose core damage was the most extensive, has breached the bottom of the primary containment vessel and even partially eaten into its concrete foundation, coming within about 30 centimetres (one foot) of leaking into the ground.” We just can’t be sure until we actually see the inside of the reactors,” Yamana said. “We still need to develop a number of robots and other technology.”

Three Mile Island needed only a few robots, mainly for remote-controlled monitoring, sampling and handling debris, as the melted fuel remained in the core. Manned entry was possible a little more than a year after the accident. Some experts say Japans current decommissioning plan is too ambitious.

They counsel waiting until contamination levels come down, and even contemplate building a shell around the reactors for the time being, as at Chernobyl.” I doubt if Fukushima Dai-ichis full decommissioning is possible. Its contamination is so widespread,” said Masashi Goto, a nuclear engineer who designed the Unit 3 reactor and now teaches at Meiji University in Tokyo.

Source

Pics and Video of Loading Transport Truck

photo.tepco.co.jp...

Now I'd like to see the process of rod removal and putting in new storage pool....

- Purple Chive

It Looks Like a Big Kitty Litter Box....

photo.tepco.co.jp...

photo.tepco.co.jp...

- Purple Chive

Purplechive
It Looks Like a Big Kitty Litter Box....

photo.tepco.co.jp...

photo.tepco.co.jp...

- Purple Chive

that's crazy right there, those joints are failing very quickly and actually turning the paint into a semi liquid state.

so is this the kind of "engineering" this tepco company can be expected to do on the removal and storage of these rods? holy crap!!!!

thank you for bringing this as i see you bring a lot to this thread.

USGS Report -

Research scientists with the USGS made the observations at the start of their 2012 field-work season. USGS observes polar bears annually in the southern Beaufort Sea region as part of a long-term research program. This bear population ranges from Barrow in Alaska east to the Tuktoyuktuk region of Canada.

Observations last summer of unusual numbers of ringed seals hauled out on beaches along the Arctic coast of Alaska, and later on, of dead and dying seals with hair loss and skin sores, led to declaration of an Unusual Mortality Event by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on December 20, 2011. Based on observations of Pacific walruses with similar skin lesions at a coastal haulout in the same region during fall, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service joined the UME investigation. Most walruses exhibiting skin lesions appeared to be otherwise healthy, and whether the symptoms observed in the seals and walruses are related is unknown. Since the initial reports from northern Alaska, ice seals with similar symptoms have also been reported in adjacent regions of Canada and Russia and from the Bering Strait region. Despite extensive testing for a wide variety of well known infectious agents, the cause(s) of the observed condition in walruses and ice seals remains unknown. Advanced testing techniques for unidentified infectious agents is continuing as well as further testing for potential causes including man-made and natural biotoxins, radiation, contaminants, auto-immune diseases, nutritional, hormonal and environmental factors.

www.usgs.gov...

Just a guess on my part - if they carried radiation detectors it might have been a whole lot faster to figure out the causes of these poor critters fates... but I'm sure it's nothing to worry about, eh folks? And it's only just begun!!! The crap is still being poured in 24/7/365!

This is a decent coverage of Fukushima degree of problems by ABC News - comments include more than 160,000 people forced out of their radioactive homes and still pay their mortgages?! (Thanks, Tepco!) ... Tepco is over their heads and is like putting the fox in charge of the hen house ... 5,300 miles from LA and still not far enough ... dozens of fish species too radioactive to eat. Is a decent news clip - they referred to levels in the oceans on the west coast (again) as 'diluted' which can only mean in a glass of water instead 10,000 particles you may get 1 - and again it accumulates... and we breathe it in the air...

www.youtube.com...


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At the bottom of the TEPCO photos and videos page linked to above or here there is

Photo taken on November 21, 2013
Photo taken by Tokyo Electric Power Company
*These photos include information concerning physical protection, etc. and therefore include altered parts.

My bolded above. Does this mean that they have altered the pictures due to "National Security" ?

If so, since they have just made all these structures fairly recently, then why would it be necessary to alter anything or to add anything which compromises National Security?

Perhaps it is just a way to excuse not showing us parts they dont want us to see... So we need to highlight the parts which have been altered and find out why they dont want us to see these.

on edit: The other thing I want to raise, is that the SFP was reinforced with steel girders underneath. Now, the metal canister they are placing the fuel rods into weighs tons, and has to be in the SPF in order to keep the rods under water, so how is the SPF holding up and how is it managing to support the weight of all that water as well as the huge metal canister + rods + water.

OK, so the canister is filled with water and the rods placed inside and there has to be water inside the canister before they start to place the rods inside. As soon as they take out the canister, the water level in the pool will drop considerably. Also, there needs to be at least a rod's worth of height above the canister yet still under water in order for the fuel rods to remain unexposed and under water. So SPF depth needs to be canister height + rod height + some margin for error. Have I got all that right? Perhaps not...

reply to post by wishes


cancer=the un-controled ,unsually rapid , cell growth,

weed killer=the accellerated growth, of the seed/cell,,

we are what we eat.

in my opinion.

Radiation,, triggers this dormant, DNA.

once again in my opinion.

reply to post by qmantoo


Ohayo Gozaimasu (Good Morning)
Responses to Questions about Fukushima Daiichi NPS Unit 4 Fuel Removal
Tepco Answer

Look also for the related Materials.

Fukushima: coming clean

For all this, it is worth reading what Naomi Hirose, Tepco's latest president, had to say in an interview with the Guardian. What happened at Fukushima, he said, was a lesson to the world: "Try to examine all the possibilities no matter how small they are, and don't think any single counter-measure is foolproof." In hindsight, one tiny detail, such as waterproof seals on doors, would have saved everything. Is the unthinkable being thought as Britain plans for a new generation of reactors?

Fukushima prompted the UK's Office for Nuclear Regulation to conduct a safety review in which Mike Weightman, its chief inspector, concluded there were no fundamental safety weaknesses, although his report identified 38 areas for improvement. Is the review, as the independent nuclear analyst John Large maintains, a whitewash? Would UK reactors, as he contends, not survive an hour without power?

Documents released under freedom of information rules showed that all eight coastal nuclear locations in the UK, including Hinkley Point, were at risk of flooding and coastal erosion, which would worsen with climate change. The point here is not whether we need nuclear power. It is whether the nuclear industry in Britain is learning from disasters. Is it coming clean about all the risks associated with the venture?

from my favourite English Newspaper

Read their linked Material too.

I loathe to post in this thread anymore. But this video seems to suggest the Japanese corporations and government were not too concerned about any real troubles. While I'm sure some folks will claim this man to be a clown, or a shill for the anti nuke folks, it does seem that the design flaw he personally supervised cannot be disputed and this TEPCO hidden fact does have bearing on this issue at hand.

reply to post by crankyoldman


Hi - I'm very interested in what you posted, but the video isn't working? ... Must be countless hidden Tepco facts, wonder how long the list would be if they were all compiled.

I'm gobsmacked every day by how much the vast majority of people believe the party line(s). I haven't even bothered to try and figure out their justification that nuclear energy/waste is the answer to climate change. Haven't TPTB heard of Tesla? Oh yeah, can't do that - it's clean and free...



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reply to post by wishes


Lead engineer on reactor vessel #4.
Says a manufacturing flaw resulted in the vessel being out of round.
Hitachi used jacks to bend it to the correct size.
Engineer felt this damaged the integrity of the vessel. Hitachi used it and did not investigate even after the flaw was exposed and the government became involved.

Let's all thank God it was off line and we may never know if it would have failed!

donlashway
reply to post by wishes

 

Lead engineer on reactor vessel #4.
Says a manufacturing flaw resulted in the vessel being out of round.
Hitachi used jacks to bend it to the correct size.
Engineer felt this damaged the integrity of the vessel. Hitachi used it and did not investigate even after the flaw was exposed and the government became involved.

Let's all thank God it was off line and we may never know if it would have failed!

He only worked on 4, you are assuming there was not a similar issue with every single item used at the plant.

There is a history of lying to cover things up, no reason to believe a single thing that comes from these wonderful glowing reports for TEPCO and their family members.

reply to post by crankyoldman


Yes, is alarming how many errors are squeaked in for the sake of money - I don't understand how this example per se had a role in #4's demise because I'm completely illiterate when i comes to their structures and operations. He talks of engineers wanting to make things safe, but I keep coming back to their 'basic' mistakes - not ensuring the breakwater wall was tall enough for the largest of tsunami's imaginable; not building it on a better location; ensuring there was back up power 24/7; storing spent fuel rods anywhere but 'above'... and on and on and on... these are all engineers faults but they all work for 'the company'. Tepco complains about not having enough money to hire workers - bs - they continue to be lazy and reckless. I'm sure GE has money and I'm sure many people would volunteer if it would stop the insanity!

reply to post by wishes


There are two pieces that might help. One: The plant was designed to secretly create material for weapons. TEPCO has to hide this fact, they cannot let anyone from the outside go snooping around. Two: TEPCO didn't design the plant, the just run it and bill people for their services, as such, they have no idea how to engineer solutions that: are cheap, hide the weapons issue and resolve the actual problems. TEPCO has no idea how to pull the molten cores out of the ground - no one does, so they've decided to simply focus as much attention on things they "can do" and ignore the rest. My guess is someone at the highest levels has cried to the US and Russia and they've been told they are on their own.

Remember, the motivations of companies like TEPCO are no the same as those who work in Momma's doughnut shop. Applying your logic, your concerns are only going to frustrate you. Ask yourself: How does TEPCO hide the damage and the truth, do some clean up while retaining profits, make sure to avoid panicking others, pass the responsibility down the food chain and makes sure there is enough obfuscation? If you think in terms of those questions you'll fully understand why the do that they do. Never ask, "why doesn't TEPCO...?"

Fukushima Daiichi NPS Prompt Report (Nov 21,2013)
Hot test resumption for System B of Multi-Nuclide Removal Equipment (ALPS)
in Fukushima Daiichi NPS

At 10:00 AM today (on November 21), we resumed a hot test for the System B of the multi-nuclide removal equipment after we completed the corrosion preventions and preparation concerning the System B of the multi-nuclide removal equipment (ALPS).

After resuming the hot test, we went on a patrol, and confirmed no abnormality such as leakage etc. Around in the end December, the treatment operation will be temporality stopped for the purpose of validating the effectiveness of the corrosion prevention. We will operate two out of three systems in order to enhance the operational rate of the two-system operation, and will start the three-system operation as soon as ready.

Tepco linky

reply to post by Human0815


Any idea's,, on what the crane is,, carrying?

reply to post by BobAthome


If you are referring to the downward pointing bullet like shape just a little right of center; it looks like either a concrete hopper or a water hopper for dropping material on the reactors or pools.